White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

This year we watched the Super Bowl at my parent’s house. Little one woke up with pink eye Saturday morning so we decided it would be best to not be around too many people. Besides, it was Sunday and we typically have dinner with my parents on Sundays.

Now, you can’t go over to someone’s house on Super Bowl Sunday without bringing something to munch on. I had worked into our No Spend Month a little cash for Super Bowl Sunday but if I didn’t have to spend it, I didn’t want to. I asked my parents if they would be up to a challenge this year – each of us would need to make two dishes using only ingredients that we had in our houses. Going to the store was only allowed for drinks. They accepted. Oh, the feast that we had!

I racked my brain trying to come up with something AMAZING to take over with what we had at home. I decided on an Oven Baked Spanish Tortilla (with spinach in place of the peppers, three cheeses instead of just one and some pepperoni for a little extra flavor) and White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies. Easy, quick, but oh so tasty.

A few years ago I tweaked an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe that a friend had given me to star cranberries instead of raisins. If you haven’t tried this yet I seriously recommend it. Currants are also a good alternative. While looking through my pantry I found half a bag of white chocolate chips that were left over from Christmas baking. White chocolate makes baked goods uber fancy. I decided to throw those into my cookies just to see how they turned out. I was very pleased with the outcome.

Image from wikipedia

I typically don’t talk about food presentation because with little one running (literally running) around my kitchen I’m much more interested in getting food on a plate and on the table than how pretty it looks when I do so. But these cookies gave me a lovely idea for presentation. In little one’s kitchen toy box there is a John McCann’s Irish Oatmeal tin. It’s metal and makes a “lovely” sound when thrown on the floor. I grabbed that tin, cleaned it up and filled it with oatmeal cookie. So cute! If you like to bake cookies for gifts, try this out as your gift box. I took a tin of cookies to work to share and that tin looked so much more fun than a plate ever could!
Enjoy!

6 T. butter

¾ c. brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
2 ½ cups oatmeal
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips

Beat butter and sugars in a stand mixer on medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add oats, cranberries and white chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until golden on the bottom.