Cranberry Chocolate CookiesMakes 2 trays.Ingredients50g soft butter
150g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
100ml vegetable oil
150g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100g rolled oats
100g dark choc chips
170g dried cranberries
MethodHeat oven to 170C. Grease or line trays.
Make caster sugar in TMX according to EDC.
Put butter, sugar, vanilla and egg into bowl. Speed 3 until smooth.
Add oil, flour , baking powder and oats. Lock lid and use
until mixture is combined.
Add chocolate and cranberries and use
until they are mixed in.
Place into fridge until the mixture firms up.
Roll walnut size amounts of mixture into a ball and place on tray. Squish down with a fork.
Bake for about 14 minutes. Leave on tray for 5 minutes and then put onto a wire rack.
Adapted from a recipe of D. Lepard's from The Guardian website.
Members' commentsHally - I was 1/2 way through making these yesterday & realised I was missing 2 ingredients. No oats (aaaggghhh) & no cranberries, no big deal there as dh is not allowed cranberries. I used cornflakes instead, result very yummy crunchy cookies.
Just made the real version, great of course, but the cornflakes are good too.
ds wont eat cranberries so used white & dark chocolate. Also had no veg oil so used rice bran oil. Result extremely yummy biscuits.
courton - Really liked this recipe but my 16 yr dd's comment was " do you have to spoil a really delicious choc chip cookie by putting cranberries in it?" the cookies have all being eaten btw.
Made this today to take to a friend's place. Huge hit with the 4 year old coming back for more...and more...and maybe a little more!
GF - I took these to work on Friday . . . .all gone . . . . "Gee, these are good!" "These are so nice!" Anything with cranberries in it is great!" "Did you really make these?" Cheesy Cheesy Cheesy What's especially good about this recipe is that you can make it ahead, keep it in the fridge . . . . and then it makes (or did for me) over 40 -great for group gatherings!
maddy - Finally got around to making these.....lovely. I did use Cadbury milk choc bits, instead of dark choc.
ES - I made these yesterday in my Thermo Chef. I too, used milk chocolate as I didn't have any dark. They are really, really yummy.
Delightful Den - I made these again today. I doubled the recipe except for the cranberries. Thermie didn't like the extra quantity. I also added about 100gms of macadamia nuts and substituted white chocolate bits for the dark chocolate. They are really good.
I found my biscuits to be a bit oily and they spread out quite a bit. I want to make these again with less oil and to get them to stay thicker and chewy rather than crisp. I am thinking that I will increase the butter a little and eliminate the oil. If the mix is too dry I might try adding a little milk.
ES - I had this problem the first time I made them, and I had trouble getting the mix to stick together. The second time I made them, I realised that I hadn't put the mixture in the fridge to firm up, before I put them on the trays when I made them the first time. After I did this, I didn't have any problems and they worked really well.
DD - I put the mixture in the fridge but it wasn't firming up very well so I put it in the freezer for a while. It was firm enough to work but there were some less firm spots in the mix. I think doubling the mix was a mistake. I am going to have another go tonight and leave the mix in the fridge until I am ready to cook them tomorrow night. I plan on increasing the butter an eliminating the oil.
deedub - I found this mix very oily & difficult to work with as well. I gave up after forming 1 tray of biscuits & froze the rest of the dough. When defrosted the dough was still pretty oily. The biscuits are really nice but I haven't bothered making again.
DD - Here are my tweaks. The method is the same as Cookies original conversion, I have only adjusted a few ingredients.
125g soft butter
75g caster sugar
75g dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
150g self raising flour
100g rolled oats
50g chopped macadamia nuts
100g dark or white choc chips
100g dried cranberries
I chopped the macadamias first then set aside. I made the caster sugar in the TM then added the brown sugar and butter and creamed. I added the egg and the vanilla and mixed again before adding the remaining dry ingredients and kneading until combined. finally adding the cranberries and choc bits and mixing on reverse speed 2. The results were thicker chewier cookies.
ES - I tried your variation (minus the macadamia nuts as I needed them to be nut free, and I didn't have any), but Im sorry to say that the consensus in my family is that the original recipe is preferred. Having said that, they were still really yummy.
Tam - Have made these biscuits a few times now - we all love them. I do find them oily (I use rice bran oil) but find it does firm up well in fridge. I have used combinations of choc chips, dried fruit and I've just made a batch with a handful of chia seeds in them. We love them!! Thanks!
Thermobudgie - What a disappointment! I've had this recipe bookmarked for ages and finally made them today. The kids and I had a choc chip cookie bake off and I lost with this recipe. Too oily and way too sweet. If I ever make them again I would halve the sugar and reduce the oil. This recipe also needs salt so perhaps more butter and less oil. They are nice and chewy however. The kids used the recipe from the women's weekly beautiful biscuits and we all agreed that they were much nicer.
maddy - I really love these cookies, and was surprised that some have found them oily.
BUT....it then occurred to me, are people measuring 100ml of the vegetable oil in their TM's, as 100 grams?
If so, this is probably why you are finding them oily.....100ml oil measured on my digital scales, actually only reads as 90g by the TM scales...so you are actually adding more oil than the recipe requires.
I always weigh mls. by digital scales, as you will have an accurate measure. Baking needs more precision in measurements.
Also, I don't flatten them, just use a cookie scoop and plonk on baking tray.....they don't flatten out then.
Hope that helps.
Thermobudgie - Well they didn't go to waste as hubby ate them but even he agreed they were too sweet. Definitely my fault though as I usually cut down sugar by at least 1/3 in all baking recipes. I don't know why I didn't don't this time!
So second batch was made with half the sugar and 80ml oil. I'm glad I tried again with some adjustments to suit my family's taste as they are very tasty. I also added some chia seeds to this batch which seemed to make them nice and chewy!
GF - I've made this several times before as per the recipe here and no problems at all . . . very very popular! Made them this afternoon to take to a meeting tonight but forgot about the popping into the fridge bit and was running out of time. The blessing (one only!!) of a very cold kitchen today and a very cold jug! No fridge time - No problem!!
ps I always measure the mls of oil before adding to the jug .
jai9 - Made these for my 2yo the other day and they were a huge hit (but ended up eating quite a few myself). Luckily I froze half the mixture in a rolled up log. I have not done this before so not sure how to cook it. Am hoping to just slice off cookie rounds but not sure whether to cook them from frozen or defrost first.
Cookie1 - I'd pop them into the oven after you have sliced them. They will probably need extra cooking time.
jai9 - Just cooked my frozen cookies as its a rainy afternoon in Perth. Yum. They turned out even better than the fresh ones. Maybe because they are thinner. I just sliced up the frozen log and cooked for an extra minute.
