Cranberry, Orange & White Chocolate Drop Cookies

I have a class on Thursday afternoons in a classroom that I swear smells like oatmeal cookies. Hence Key Lime Chocolate Chip cookies a few weeks ago and hence Cranberry, Orange and White Chocolate Cookies today (which I actually made two Thursdays ago). This time, I used the recipe for Chewy Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies from Veganomicon (buy this book now!) as a base and adapted the heck out of it. If you can’t find vegan white chocolate chips, omit them and substitute extra cranberries.

These cookies stayed moist for over a week! Seriously.

Cranberry, Orange and White Chocolate Drop Cookies
Makes 30 Cookies

½ cup canola or safflower oil
⅓ cup maple syrup
⅓ cup soymilk
¾ cup unrefined sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2⅓ whole wheat flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
zest of one orange (about 1½ Tablespoon)
½ cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350F and lightly grease two baking sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the oil, syrup, soymilk, sugar and vanilla.
3. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, orange zest and salt.
4. Fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips.
5. Bake 10 minutes until lightly browned. Don’t worry if they’re a bit soft. That’s the secret, I think.

Key Lime Chocolate Chip Cookies

Finding myself with two key limes in my fridge and no plan for using them, I decided to combine my love of key limes with a (current and pretty common) craving for oatmeal cookies. Starting with the Oatmeal Raisin Drop Cookie recipe from the 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking, I came up with these yummy guys. Try them out and let me know what you think.

Note: Key limes are smaller and sweeter than regular limes. I don’t know how this would work with regular limes, although I would suspect not well. Try lemon if you can’t get key limes.

Key Lime Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 2 dozen Cookies

½ cup butter or vegan margarine
¾ cup unrefined sugar
1 egg or 1 Tbsp. ground flax seed + 3 Tbsp. water
½ tsp. vanilla
zest of 2 key limes (about 1 Tbsp.)
juice of 1 key lime (about 2 Tbsp.)
¾ cup flour
1⅓ cup rolled oats
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ cup slivered almonds
heaping ½ cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together butter (or margarine), sugar, egg (or flax mixture), vanilla, lime zest and lime juice.
3. Add flour, oats and salt and mix well.
4. Fold in baking soda, almonds and chocolate chips.
5. Grease two cookie sheets and drop batter on, 1 tablespoonfull at a time, spacing cookies at least 1.5″ apart.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown.
7. Cool on a wire rack, and enjoy!