{Recipe} Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

Today I am going to share with you my favorite cookie recipe. These Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies are great for a snack or for a quick breakfast! The original recipe comes from Paula Deen's The Lady & Son's, Too! cookbook. Yes, 2 sticks of butter are used, but who's counting?

What you will need:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature (Use real butter, margarine doesn't work very well, I have tried)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar (I just use whatever I have on hand)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg (Do not use ground nutmeg. If you don't have fresh, omit the nutmeg)
• 2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 2 cups dried cranberries (or raisins)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Get your baking sheets ready by either greasing or lining them with parchment paper.  In your stand mixer, cream the butter & both sugars together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well.  Stir in the vanilla.  In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt & nutmeg. Beat the flour mixture into the creamed mixture. Stir in the oats & dried fruit.

Your dough should look like this.

For uniformity in size, I like to use my ice cream scoop to spoon the dough onto the cookie sheets. If you make sure all the cookies are the same size, you will have the same doneness throughout the whole batch. If not, the smaller ones will be dry and the larger ones may not be cooked enough.

Drop the dough by uniform scoops about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. With the pans I use (Pampered Chef Baking Pans or my Pampered Chef Large Bar Pan) and the size of my cookies, it ended up being more along the lines of 15-17 minutes. The outside of these cookies is crunchy and the inside is gooey! Perfection!