Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies Recipe
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These oatmeal cranberry white chocolate cookies are chewy in the middle, crisp at the edges, and sweet but not too sweet. You make them in one bowl with melted butter, no mixer needed and your first tray comes out of the oven in about 40 minutes. The recipe makes 26 cookies.
Make them plain, or add browned butter, orange zest and a pinch of cardamom for Christmas.
Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies Recipe At A Glance
Prep: 20 min | Chill: 10 min (Optional) | Bake: 11 min per tray. First tray out: about 40 min | All 26 cookies: about 52 minutes
- Main ingredients: rolled oats, dried cranberries (preferably reduced sugar), a chopped white chocolate bar or chips, brown sugar, butter
- Flavor: buttery and chewy, with tart cranberries and creamy white chocolate
- The little something special: optional browned butter, orange zest and a pinch of cardamom. They make the cookies a little festive.
How These Cookies Came About
I first made these when I needed a Christmas cookie to bring along and didn’t want to turn up with plain chocolate chip. So I took my melted-butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, browned the butter, and swapped the chips for cranberries, white chocolate and a little orange. People really liked them, and they’ve been on repeat ever since 🙂
I grew up with Latvian cooking, so oats, cranberries and cardamom are flavors I use all the time. You’ll find more of them on the Latvian and Baltic recipes page. (Check out my applesauce overnight oats and my brownies with cream cheese frosting, which have a lingonberry option too.) With the orange and cardamom added, these taste lightly of Christmas, but you can easily make them in summer too.
The Ingredients I Tested
Full list and amounts in the recipe card below.
I wanted the cranberries, white chocolate, oats and vanilla to be the main flavors, with the orange and cardamom just mildly there in the background.
- Sugar. As my readers know, I am not a fan of overly sweet desserts. I lived in France for many years, and the desserts I got used to there were less sweet and had more flavor. So for this recipe, I tried a few different amounts before I settled on this one. With more sugar they just tasted too sweet, especially with the white chocolate in there. I also tried leaving out the white sugar completely. You can do this, but I found the small amount of white sugar gives the edges a bit of crunch, so I kept it.
- Cranberries. I made these with both regular and reduced-sugar dried cranberries, and the reduced-sugar ones are much better. White chocolate is already sweet, so with regular cranberries you end up with two sweet things together. Reduced-sugar ones give you one tart and one sweet thing. My favorites are 50% reduced-sugar Craisins. Regular dried cranberries still work if that’s what you have in your cupboard.
- White chocolate. I like to chop up a bar instead of using chips. That way I can use my favorite white chocolate (Coles Belgian white chocolate), which I buy in bulk when it’s on special. Chopping it also gives you some nice larger pieces, so you get bigger pockets of white chocolate in the cookies. White chocolate chips work fine too and can make for a prettier cookie because you get those even chips on top, but for the best flavor, go for the chopped chocolate.
- Water. Without it, the dough was very dry and tricky to mix. Browning butter boils off some of its water, so I add 1 tablespoon of water for melted butter and 2 for brown butter.
- Oats. Use rolled oats, not quick oats or steel-cut. Quick oats usually make a softer, cakier cookie, and steel-cut oats stay hard.
Optional Christmas Extras: Brown Butter, Orange and Cardamom
Brown butter, orange zest and cardamom are all optional. You can add one, two or all three and I find they give the cookie a more holiday or Christmas flavor.
- Cardamom. I tried using more, but it took over the flavor. This is an oatmeal cookie, not a spice cookie, so 1/8 teaspoon is plenty.
- Orange zest. Half an orange is enough. It makes the cookie taste a bit more festive and adds to the overall flavor, but I didn’t want an orange cookie, so I kept the amount small.
- Browned butter. Gives the cookie a nutty flavor. Nice to have but not essential.
Substitutions I’ve Tried
- Dried cherries work instead of cranberries, but I’m not a big fan. I find them too sweet. Cranberries, even the sweetened ones, go better with the white chocolate.
- Lemon zest works fine instead of orange. Just don’t overdo it, because lemon is stronger. Half a small lemon is enough.
- Dark chocolate is really nice with the cranberries if you find white chocolate too sweet. I don’t use milk chocolate here because it’s just too sweet.
- Nuts. I’ve tried macadamias, pecans and walnuts. Add about 1/4 cup (35 grams).
Equipment I Use
I make these in one bowl with a fork and a spatula, so you don’t need much. These are the four things that make a difference:
- A light-colored saucepan for browning the butter. In a dark pan you can’t see the color change, and brown butter can turn into burnt butter quickly.
- A kitchen scale. A cup of flour scooped from the bag can weigh anywhere from 120 g to 160 g, and too much flour makes dry cookies. I also weigh the dough balls at 25 g each so they all bake evenly.
- A cookie scoop (optional). A heaped tablespoon works too, but a scoop is quicker.
- A wire rack for cooling. I used to cool them on a plate, but they stick and get a bit bent out of shape 🙁
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How to Make White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
Full instructions in the recipe card below.
1. Melt or brown the butter. For the simple version, melt the butter in a pot or the microwave. For brown butter, cook it in a light-colored saucepan over medium heat. It will foam, then go quiet, then start to smell like toffee. Swirl the pan and watch for golden-brown specks on the bottom, about 5 to 7 minutes. Pour it into the bowl and scrape in all the brown bits with a spatula. Those specks are the flavor.
2. Let the butter cool for 10 minutes, then stir in the water. It should be warm, not hot, or it will scramble the egg.
3. Whisk in the sugars, and the orange zest if using. Don’t stress if it looks a bit grainy and separated at this point.
4. Add the egg and vanilla. Whisk for about 30 seconds until the mixture turns glossy and thick.
5. Stir in the dry ingredients. Flour, baking soda, salt and cardamom (if using), just until you can’t see dry flour.
6. Fold in the oats, cranberries and white chocolate. I use a rubber spatula, because it scrapes up all the dough from the bottom of the bowl. The extra cranberries and chocolate for the tops stay separate for now.
7. Chill the dough in the freezer for 10 minutes. I use that time to heat the oven and clean up.
8. Then roll it into balls and press a few extra cranberries and chocolate pieces into the tops. Bake until the edges are golden and the centers still look a little underdone. Don’t freak out if they look too soft coming out of the oven. They firm up as they cool, and that slightly underbaked center is what keeps them chewy.
9. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then move to a rack.
Tips for Chewy Oatmeal Cookies
- Weigh the flour if you can. Too much flour is the most common reason oatmeal cookies turn dry and puffy.
- For perfectly round cookies, put a glass upside down over each cookie as soon as it comes out of the oven and swirl it around a few times. The soft edges tuck in and you get a neat circle.
- Our Christmas here in Australia is in the middle of summer, so I always chill the dough. In a hot kitchen they spread everywhere.
Storage and Make-Ahead
- Baked cookies: Store in an airtight container or tin at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Dough: You can put the dough covered in the fridge for up to 3 days. The flavor gets better I think🙂
- Freezing the dough: Before Christmas I roll the dough into balls, squish them slightly, freeze them on a tray and then put them in a freezer bag. They keep for up to 3 months. Bake them straight from frozen and add 1 to 2 minutes.
FAQ
It depends on your kitchen. If it’s cool, you can skip it, but the cookies will spread more. If it’s warm, put the dough in the freezer for 10 minutes.
Yes. Plain melted butter works and the cookies are still lovely. Just use 1 tablespoon of water instead of 2. I brown the butter at Christmas for the nutty, toffee flavor.
Usually the dough was too warm or there wasn’t quite enough flour. Chill the dough for another 15 minutes, weigh your flour if you can, and check that your baking soda is fresh.
Usually too much flour or overbaking. Take them out while the centers still look a little underdone. They firm up as they cool.
What to Serve Them With
A glass of cold milk, a cup of coffee or tea, a mug of hot chocolate, or in summer, my chamomile honey lemonade.
At Christmas I put them on a cookie plate next to Latvian cottage cheese cookies (biezpiena cepumi), which are very pretty and only lightly sweet, and Latvian gingerbread cookies. For a bigger holiday dessert table, I like to make a chocolate chestnut yule log.
They also travel well, so they’re a good choice for cookie exchanges or bake sales.
What to Make Next
Made these? Leave a star rating and a comment below. It helps other home cooks find the recipe, and I read every one. Every recipe on this blog is made and tested in my own kitchen. You can read more about how I develop and test recipes here. 🙂
Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Light-colored saucepan or a microwave-safe bowl if you’re not browning the butter
- 1 Whisk or fork
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Cookie scoop Optional, but gives you even sized cookies
- 1 Baking paper parchment paper
- 1 Wire rack for cooling
Ingredients
Dough
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 8 tbsp
- 1 tbsp water 2 tbsp if browning the butter
- 7 tbsp light brown sugar packed, about 1/2 cup minus 1 tbsp
- 2 tbsp white sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 3/4 cup plain all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda bicarb soda
- 1/4 tsp fine salt skip if using salted butter
- 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries reduced-sugar if possible, plus 2 tbsp (20 g) for the tops
- 1/2 cup white chocolate chopped, plus 2 tbsp (20 g) for the tops
Optional festive extras
- zest of 1/2 orange optional
- 1/8 tsp ground cardamom optional
Instructions
- Melt or brown the butter. For plain cookies, melt the butter in a saucepan or the microwave. For brown butter, cook it in a light-colored saucepan over medium heat, swirling, until it smells like toffee and golden-brown specks form on the bottom, 5–7 minutes. Pour into a large heatproof bowl and scrape in all the brown bits.
- Cool and add water. Let the butter cool for 10 minutes, then stir in the water (1 tablespoon for melted butter, 2 for brown butter). The butter should be warm, not hot.
- Add the sugars. Whisk in the brown sugar, white sugar and orange zest (if using). It may look grainy.
- Add the egg and vanilla. Whisk for about 30 seconds until glossy and thick.
- Add the dry ingredients. Stir in the flour, baking soda, salt and cardamom (if using) until no dry flour remains.
- Fold in the mix-ins. Fold in the oats, cranberries and white chocolate with a spatula. Keep the topping cranberries and chocolate separate.
- Chill. Freeze the dough for 10 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 175°C fan-forced (190°C conventional / 375°F) and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
- Shape. Roll the dough into 25 g balls (about 1 heaped tablespoon) and space them 5 cm (2 inches) apart, about 13 per tray. Press the topping cranberries and chocolate into the tops.
- Bake. Bake one tray at a time on the middle rack for about 11 minutes, until the edges are golden and the centers look slightly underdone.
- Cool. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then move to a wire rack.
Notes
- Bake time is per tray. Bake one tray at a time, about 11 minutes each.
- Storage: Keep in an airtight tin at room temperature for up to 5 days, or freeze baked cookies for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature for 20 minutes.
- Make ahead: The dough keeps in the fridge for up to 3 days. You can also freeze dough balls on a tray, bag them, and keep them for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen and add 1–2 minutes to your baking time.
- Large cookies: Use 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie to make about 14. Start checking at 12 minutes.
- Hard the next day? They were overbaked. Take the next batch out a minute or two sooner.
