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- Chewy cranberries, rich chocolate, and hearty oats give these cookies a balanced mix of sweet, tart, and nutty flavors.
- The recipe is flexible, letting you swap in different chocolates or dried fruits and adjust cookie size without losing great results.
- The cookies emerge from the oven with golden edges, soft centers, and just the right chew in under 15 minutes.
These oatmeal cranberry chocolate chip cookies are the definition of complementary contrast, with tangy fruit balanced by nutty rolled oats and your choice of white or dark chocolate (or both). The finished cookies should be chewy on the inside, buttery and crisp around the edges, and pleasantly substantial thanks to all the additions to the dough. And like most great drop cookie recipes, this one is open to a bit of creative freedom — feel free to size your cookies as you please and adjust the bake time accordingly, or try one of our suggested flavor variations.
Should dried cranberries be soaked before baking?
Rehydrating dried fruit before baking is an option, but it isn’t necessary in this recipe. Still, if desired, you can soak your dried cranberries in hot water for 15 minutes before adding them to your stand mixer to beat into the dough. The fruit will plump up and become juicy, adding a softer texture to the cookies; skipping the soak will yield a chewier result.
Cold vs. room-temperature eggs
Believe it or not, the temperature of your kitchen and ingredients can have a noticeable impact on your baking. Though not imperative, it will make a difference to let the eggs stand on the counter for a few hours before cracking them into the mixer. Cold eggs can alter the texture of your dough, causing ingredients like butter to seize up and preventing the dough from becoming aerated as you whip. Room-temperature eggs, on the other hand, will incorporate more quickly and evenly into the mixture and are more “flexible,” allowing your cookie dough to fluff up as air is beaten in.
Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen
This recipe is versatile and easy to play with. Try these variations:
- We call for semisweet or white chocolate chips, but feel free to use milk chocolate or some combination thereof — or even shake things up by using chopped chocolate for a chunkier chocolate texture.
- If you’re not a fan of dried cranberries (or don’t have any on hand), try swapping in another dried fruit like raisins, cherries, or apricots.
- For a toastier, nuttier dimension, you could toast your oats, either in the oven or on the stovetop, before stirring them into the dough.
- If you’d like slightly thicker cookies, mix an additional half cup of flour into the batter.
