Fill The Cookie Jar: Fresh Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

It's time for another installment of my newest monthly challenge, Fill the Cookie Jar.

This month's theme was Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving cookies, hmm.  Nothing jumped out at me.  I did some searching online and found the perfect recipe.  I procrastinated, and made that recipe yesterday afternoon.  They were kind of a pain in the butt to make, but I was sure they were worth the effort.  Then I opened the oven.  Total flop!  They did not turn out right at all.  I'm not sure why; I only did one little thing differently.  It didn't seem like it would make that big of a difference, but then again, I am not a baker so who knows.  It was about 3:00 and I didn't think I had time to make something different.  What other Thanksgiving themed cookie could I make without going to the store?  Then I remembered that I had a bag of fresh cranberries stashed in the freezer from last winter.  Cranberries are very Thanksgiving-y!  Most cranberry cookie recipes call for dried cranberries, but I did some digging and found one at Food.com that uses fresh cranberries.  It was a mad dash to get them made and photographed before it got dark, but I made it just in time!  Here's the recipe.

Fresh Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh (or frozen and thawed) cranberries

½ cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp orange extract

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp cinnamon

1½ cups oats

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.

In a food processor or blender pulse cranberries until chopped. Set aside.

Cream butter and brown sugar together.  Add egg and orange extract and mix well.  Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and oats and mix well.  Gently stir in cranberries.  Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet.

Bake at 375° for 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom. Remove from cookie sheet onto parchment paper to cool.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.

So these cookies turned out great.  It only took me like 10 minutes from the time I found the recipe until I threw them in the oven.  Not bad!  I did have to use white sugar instead of brown because I was out, but they were still fine.  I would definitely use brown next time though.  And next time will probably be tomorrow since I have the rest of the bag of cranberries to use up.

I love the oats in these cookies.  They give them great body and chewiness.  My favorite kind of cookie.  And the fresh cranberries are so hugely different than the dried.  Not chewy at all, and they have this bright, fresh taste that is just unbelievable.  They're not sour, but they have a great tang to them.  And don't you just love the beautiful red color?

Here are some fun Thanksgiving cookies I have posted in years past:

Groovy Gobblers

Pilgrim Hat Cookies

These cranberry cookies would be a great addition to your Thanksgiving buffet.  Check out all the other great Thanksgiving cookies below and come back next month to see what kind of Christmas cookie I come up with.