Cranberry Oatmeal cookies with walnuts and chocolate chips

Oatmeal Cranberry cookies with chocolate chips and walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. FYI- Dough must be chilled at least an hour and butter needs to cool after browning. Cook time is 10-12 minutes per batch. Makes 4-5 dozen.

4 cups old fashioned oats, divided- 2 ½ cups add with flour, ½ cup ground fine in blender and added with flour, up to 1 cup additional added after nuts until oatmeal no longer sticks to dough
2 cup flour
1 ½ t salt
1 t baking soda
Optional: ¼ to ½ cup almond meal

blend dry ingredients together in a large bowl

10 Tablespoons (1 stick+ 2 T) browned butter
melt in a large (not nonstick) saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally until it starts to foam. Then stir constantly just until the color starts to turn tan or light brown and the butter smells nutty. Remove from heat immediately and add:
2 t cinnamon
½ t allspice
1 t pumpkin spice
¼ t clove
optional: ¼ t of ground ginger, pinch of cardamom, pinch of nutmeg, pinch of coriander, pinch of ground black pepper

Let butter mixture cool until still liquid but not too warm.

To butter mixture in sauce pan, add and stir well, breaking up clumps of brown sugar:
1 cup neutral flavor oil
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar

To butter and sugar mixture add :

4 eggs
1 egg yolks
3 t vanilla

Mix all liquid ingredients well, making sure the egg is combined.

Add liquid to dry ingredients slowly, mixing well between additions until no streaks of flour remain.



Gently fold into to dough:
1 & ¼ cup roughly chopped walnuts or other nuts
1 cup dried, sweetened cranberries or cherries
1 cup mini chocolate chips (must be mini size chips to stick)

Mix until all are mixed into dough. At this point, you can add between ½ to 1 cup more oats, gently folding into dough, just until the oats stop sticking to the dough.
Cover bowl and refrigerate 3-5 hours or until very cold.

Spoon out onto parchment paper on cookie sheets, about 2-3 Tablespoons per cookie, then mash into a ball with wet hands and smash slightly flat on the sheet. These do not spread much, so just leave a little room between each cookie, about an inch. If dough gets too sticky and chips/nuts start falling out, put dough back in the fridge to chill before finishing or between batches.

Cook at 350 f for 10-12 minutes until golden on edges, but still soft in middle. Leave sitting on the hot pan for 5 minutes. Then move parchment onto a cooling rack for another 10 minutes.

Store at room temp in an airtight container for several days.

Substitution notes- May substitute almond or coconut flour for ground oats. If replacing walnuts with pecans, reduce sugar a bit and add more cardamom to replace the bitterness of walnuts.  If replacing cranberries, raisins are too sweet, currants are better or dried cherries. Could use diced dried apricots also but reduce sugar a bit.
Do not skimp on spices or salt, this is very sweet, so it needs a lot of spice and salt to hold up to the sugar.

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