Soft and Chewy Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
There’s something extra special about baking during the holiday season, and these soft and chewy cranberry oatmeal cookies are the perfect treat to add to your festive holiday spread.
Made with nourishing sourdough discard, tart fresh cranberries, hearty oats, and a touch of creamy white chocolate, these cookies combine cozy and comforting flavors. Whether you’re sharing them with loved ones or enjoying them by the fire, these cookies will indeed become a holiday favorite!
Mixing the Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
Achieving the perfect cookies requires a strategic approach to mixing the dough. The order in which you combine the ingredients can significantly impact the texture and flavor of your cookies. Here’s a recommended order for mixing cookie dough ingredients:
- Butter: Start by creaming room-temperature browned butter with your sugar. Creaming the butter and sugars together helps create a light and tender cookie texture.
- Sourdough Starter: add the sourdough starter as an egg replacement, along with any additional wet ingredients, like vanilla extract, to the butter and sugar. The starter adds moisture and a unique tangy flavor to the cookies.
- Dry Ingredients: In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add this mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until just combined. Overmixing can result in tough cookies, so be careful not to overwork the dough.
- Cranberry and white chocolate mix-ins: Gently fold in the white chocolate and fresh cranberries. These additions give your cookies their distinct flavor.
- Chill the Dough: Roll the dough up in parchment paper, then refrigerate it overnight in the fridge or for a few hours in the freezer. Chilling the dough allows the flavors to meld and the cookies to hold shape during the baking.
Chilling the cranberry oatmeal cookie dough
After you mix the cookie dough, you need to form and wrap the dough in parchment paper for chilling. The dough must be firm and chilled solid before you can slice it.
Chilling the dough allows the butter to solidify and fully absorb into the flour. If you try to skip the chill step, the cookies will spread and melt in the oven, and no one wants that.
How to coat and slice cranberry oatmeal cookies
My favorite aspect of slice-and-bake cranberry oatmeal cookies is the crust. After chilling, the logs can be rolled in crunchy toppings like raw sugar, natural sprinkles, or nuts, adding texture and flavor.
To coat the cookie dough log, spread the toppings evenly on a sheet pan, then roll and press the log into them. If the chilled log doesn’t stick well, I alternate between rolling and pressing the coating with my hands.
If the coating isn’t adhering, you can brush the cookie dough logs with an egg wash made of 1 egg white and 1 tablespoon of water to help it stick better.
The best technique to slice the cookie dough
These cookies are filled with chunky bits, making them visually appealing and delicious, but slicing can be tricky.
Use a large, extremely sharp knife and cut quickly, pressing down firmly without sawing back and forth.
Can the cookie dough ferment in the fridge overnight?
For best results, chill the dough overnight in the fridge. This allows for a long fridge ferment, making the cookies easier to digest. The dough can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days before slicing and baking.
Can I freeze the dough?
Yes! You can freeze either the logs or the sliced cookie. If freezing, place the logs rolled in parchment paper in an airtight container.
More Sourdough Cookie Recipes to Try
- Sourdough Miso Chocolate Chip Cookies with Brown Butter
- Lemon Blueberry Cookies (Blueberry Muffin Cookies)
- Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pumpkin and Pecans
Sourdough Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies (Slice and Bake Cookies)
Perfect for using up leftover fresh cranberries from the holidays, these easy slice-and-bake cranberry oatmeal cookies with sourdough starter are going to be a hit!
- Prep: 15 minutes
- Cook: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 8 hours 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 170 g all-purpose flour
- 50 grams rolled oats
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 115 g salted butter*
- 150 g sugar
- 100 g thick sourdough starter*
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup minced fresh cranberries (or craisins)
- 1/2 cup chopped white chocolate (or chips)
- sprinkles (optional, for coating)
Instructions
- If you’d like to make these soft scoop-and-bake cookies instead, you can! See notes!
- Brown the butter in a small saucepan until bubbly, and dark golden. Stir it continuously, careful to not burn it.
- Remove from heat and allow the butter to cool completely to room temperature.
- In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, oats, salt).
- Once the butter has cooled completely but is still liquid, to a large bowl add the brown butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and sourdough starter. Combine with a whisk or hand mixer until even.
- Fold the combined dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Stir until well combined.
- Add your chocolate and cranberries.
- Form the dough into a long shape and wrap it tightly in parchment paper. Refrigerate overnight.
- After refrigerating, preheat the oven to 350°
- (Optional) sprinkle some sugar and sprinkles onto a sheet pan. Unwrap the cookie dough and roll the log in the toppings.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Slice the cookie dough into half inch thick slices.
- Place the cookie dough slices about two to three inches apart on the lined cookie sheet.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the edges are a very pale golden brown and the tops have turned matte.
- Let them sit on the cookie sheet until they are completely cool.
Notes
- You can use discard from the fridge or active starter. Either way it is “discarded” into this recipe since it is not used for rise. I keep a thick starter, so a thin watery starter will give you a different texture in these cookies.
- if you do not like a cookie with a balanced salty-sweet flavor, use unsalted butter or reduce the added salt.
- To make these scoop-and-bake instead of slice-and-bake: add 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking soda to the dry ingredients. Refrigerate the dough in a covered bowl, then scoop with a cookie scoop and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes.
What is the oven temperature?
350 F (listed in direction step 8)
There is no brown sugar in the ingredients list but in the directions it says to add brown sugar and granulated sugar. How much brown sugar do we need?
I’m not seeing “brown sugar” anywhere in my directions. In step 5, it says “brown butter, sugar”