This recipe for Cranberry-Pecan Cookies is a tried and true favorite from Greg, who devoted a blog entirely to oatmeal cookies. The blog is no longer available, but thanks to Greg for the recipe. I have been making these on and off for the past 15 years or so and they are always well received.
Cranberry-Pecan Cookies aka Cranberry Crunch!
Greg calls these Cranberry Crunch Cookies. The crunch comes from the secret ingredient, which just so happens to be ground graham crackers. When I first made these I took them to a party and everyone went nuts over them. Speaking of which, the pecans were a change I made. Greg uses toasted almonds, and I suppose the toasted almonds add even more of a crunch. I probably lost some of the crunch by changing the nuts to pecans, but I do like pecans.
By the way, a great addition to Cranberry-Pecans would be some chopped up crystallized ginger! I'm sure I've tried that in the past, but can't recall at the moment.
Recipe
Cranberry-Pecan Cookies
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter cool room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups dark brown sugar, very tightly packed 280 grams
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- 1 ½ teaspoons orange zest
- 1 1/1 teaspoons orange juice
- ¾ cup flour 3.4 oz/95 grams
- ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ scant teaspoon salt
- 1 cup finely ground graham crackers
- 1 cup oats old fashioned
- 1 cup pecans chopped and toasted
- 1 ¼ cups dried cranberries
- Optional Topping: Turbinado Sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Cream butter and brown sugar in a mixing bowl using high speed of an electric mixer; Beat in the egg, vanilla, orange zest and orange juice.
- In another bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Stir in the oatmeal, graham cracker crumbs and chopped pecans. Stir that mixture into the butter mixture. Stir in the cranberries.
- Shape dough into large balls--about 2 tablespoons each. Dip tops in turbinado sugar if desired.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes (up to 15 minutes if you use very generous tablespoons!) or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.
Sue says
I made these way back when and we liked them a lot!