Baking Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mixing the ingredients. Note my new cookie dough scoop!

I was trying to see what I can make for Master Ken's class tomorrow. We have a potluck during every class meeting, and I love it. It's rare for me not to bring any food to share. I looked into my pantry and saw 2 bags of dried cranberries. I got them not long ago when they were on sale, buy one get one free. I grabbed one of the bags and looked on the back. I have found quite a few excellent recipes from packaging of food items. Ha, a recipe for Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and I have all the ingredients!

adding cranberries and white chocolate chips

I was a bit short on oatmeal, so I had to do some math to adjust the recipe. Here's the original recipe:

2/3 cup butter, softened                                 1 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 brown sugar                                             1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs                                                    6 oz. dried cranberries
1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats                        2/3 cup white chocolate chunks or chips 
1-1/2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mix well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Add to butter mixture in several additions (My tip: Important step! Do not dump it all in at once!), mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes approximately 2-1/2 dozen cookies.

Ready for the oven

I got a new cookie dough scoop last year. It was a bit pricey but my first cheap cookie dough scoop fell apart on me. Hopefully this expensive scoop will last. I also just now realized that I used baking powder instead of baking soda. The cookies turned out quite well, so it appears it is okay to use baking powder. These cookies smell incredible. I love the smell of freshly baked pastries. I wish I knew how I could bottle this awesome smell and use it as home scent. Is there such a product? I guess those scented candles are for the same purpose.

I ate 3 cookies as they came out of oven. Although I adjusted the recipe, I still ended up with 36 cookies.  Tomorrow morning I don't have to get up early to cook or bake, and we will have dessert at the potluck!

Cookies are done!