Brown Butter White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

*exhale*  That’s a lot of title.  But that just means there’s a lot to love in these cookies.

They’re like oatmeal raisin cookies but totally better.  Because there are no raisins.

There are two types of people in this world- Those who do raisins and those who don’t.  I just don’t.  I don’t need them, they overpower everything they’re in, they’re too sticky-sweet and loud, they’re just selfish little pellets of what used to be a perfectly good fruit.

Dried cranberries, on the other hand, have a little more edge to them.   They’re a bit more interesting… they have some tartness to their sweetness, which I thoroughly enjoy.  And they also pair really well with something super sweet like white chocolate.  Which brings me to this here cookie.

This began with my standard oatmeal ‘raisin’ cookie recipe, but then I tweaked a couple things.  First off, I cut back on the sugar amount, which I always find myself doing.  I increased the salt amount, which is really a lovely thing to have in both an oatmeal cookie and a chocolate one.  Salt makes sweeter things better.  Whether that makes sense to you or not, it just does.  Trust me.  Then I browned the butter.  Which just makes them insanely delicious.  Like, you thought a really good oatmeal cookie was really good before?  Nope.  Brown Butter makes it even more so.  It just intensifies that butter flavor and takes it over the edge.

I baked these today with the help of my (almost 5 year old!) daughter when I couldn’t nap.  I should have been napping.  I needed a nap.  If I were a napper, I’d have been asleep considering I didn’t sleep last night… But since I never learned how to nap, I bake instead.  And I guess that’s a good thing for the people around me because whenever I get stressed out, I bake.  And then my people get to eat yummy things.  And then they hug me.  And I feel better inside the hug.  Hugs are cozy.  And warm.  And… *yawn*…

See what I did there?

BROWN BUTTER  . WHITE CHOCOLATE . 

CRANBERRY OATMEAL COOKIES

First we brown the butter.

In a small skillet, on medium-high heat, add in…

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter

Allow it to melt, then bubble and sizzle, then begin to brown.  Once the sizzling stops, you have brown butter.  Remove from the heat and transfer to a heat safe bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once your butter is ready (softened, room temp brown butter), add it to the bowl of your standing mixer along with…

• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar

Cream the butter and sugar together until it’s light and… creamy.

Add in…

• 2 large eggs (one at a time)
• big splash vanilla

Mix as you’re adding.  Once the eggs are fully mixed in, add the following dry ingredients (that you’ve already whisked together to combine), slowly, a little bit at a time…

• 2 cups all purpose flour (I like using whole wheat pastry flour when I can)
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, rounded
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• freshly grated nutmeg (I never measure mine since I’m always grating it fresh but I’d say it’s roughly 1/4 tsp

Once the first dry ingredients have all been added, and you’ve scraped down the sides of the bowl, now add in…

• 3 cups quick oats (I prefer the quick kind, as they make a softer cookie, but if all you have are the standard, rolled oats, then just use those)
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup dried cranberries (my local health food store carries all-natural, apple juice-sweetened, dried cranberries, which I love to use when I can because they’re less sweet and more tangy)

Mix until everything has been well distributed.

Use a medium sized (1/4 cup size) ice cream scoop and scoop out your 20 cookies onto 2 un-greased cookie sheets.  Space them an inch or so apart from each other.

Flatten them in a criss cross pattern with a fork (as demonstrated here by my lovely assistant)…

Sprinkle them with raw / crystallized / sanding sugar.

Bake them in a preheated 375 degree oven, one pan on each rack, for 10 minutes.  Rotate and flip the pans and continue to bake for another 5 minutes.

Remove and allow the cookies to cool on the pans set over a rack.

Eat warm if you can.

And if you can’t get that hug you may need, just remember I told you…

You are special today.

Thanks for reading, y’all!  XOXO