When I set out to make these cookies last night, I did not intend to loop this post back to breakfast again. Yet that seems to be what happened.
Last night after a nutritious dinner of cereal 😉 Benzo and I were lounging around watching American Idol when we both really wanted something sweet. I’ve had oatmeal cookies on my mind lately so I started googling for a recipe on my phone. Every oatmeal cookie recipe I found involved creaming butter and sugar. I was not in the mood for that. I didn’t want to wait for the butter soften and I didn’t really want to dirty my mixer. I wanted something I could mix in one, maybe two bowls by hand and then drop on a cookie sheet. Easy. Simple. Fast.
The only recipe I found was this one on All Recipes. I made a few changes to suit my taste buds (like swapping cranberries for raisins) and came up with the recipe below. I also halved the original recipe, so if you want more just double my measurements below.
Oatmeal-Cranberry-Walnut Cookies
Adapted from Easy Oatmeal Cookies on All Recipes
Approximately 21 cookies
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup oats (I used old fashioned)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 flax egg (or 1 egg + 2 tbsp ground flax)
3/8 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine cranberries and hot water and set aside. Mix up flax egg if using and set aside. In a large bowl mix flours, baking soda, salt, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar and walnuts. In a separate bowl beat egg (or add flax egg) and then mix in with applesauce, vanilla and cranberry-water mixture. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and stir until combined. Drop by the spoonful on cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes or until brown.
Note that cookies will not spread out as much as regular cookies. See the picture below:
These cookies turned out pretty good, but they’re not like regular cookies. As one reviewer on the original recipe said, they’re more like scones. Or muffin bites or something. They are definitely dense and chewy. Which brings me back to breakfast. These “cookies” actually make a great breakfast-on-the-go. I had three this morning! I think they would be a good snack too for a little pick-me-up in the afternoon.
Next time I might make them a little bigger and flatten the middles down so they are a big breakfast cookie, like the prepackaged kind. I think they might also be good as a bar if you just spread the batter in a square pan. You’d have to bake them longer, but just watch them and then test the middle periodically to see when they’re done. It would be similar to these oatmeal bars I made recently, which I loved.
Sometimes I just love impromtu baking sessions in the evenings. 🙂
Everything Is Homemade 