The Fruit Blends In but the Cookie Stands Out: Cranberry Apricot Oatmeal Cookies

Earlier this week I was in the mood for a good old-fashioned cookie. As it happened, I also had some dried cranberries left over from another baking project, and I found a way to kill two birds with one stone: Tom Douglas' recipe for "Cranberry Apricot Oatmeal Cookies" from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook.

This recipe is very easy to make, especially because the ingredient quantities are provided by volume as well as both metric and avoirdupois weight; measuring by weight makes things go faster and also eliminates the need to dirty any measuring cups. You simply cream together softened butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla; add eggs; mix in the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cloves, old-fashioned oats, and salt); and add dried fruit (cranberries, golden raisins, and chopped apricots). You can scoop out the dough immediately and bake.

The recipe says it yields 20 four-inch cookies if you use about 1/4 cup of dough; I used a #24 scoop and got 33 cookies. As the recipe directs, I flattened the mounds of dough before baking and the cookies baked up nice and flat, wonderfully nubbly, and beautifully golden brown. They were gorgeous.

I thought these were fantastic cookies. They were crisp outside, chewy on the inside, and filled with the warm flavor of cinnamon and spice. The cookie itself was very chewy as well as the dried fruit inside -- but it was difficult to tell exactly what type of fruit it was. I couldn't make out the distinct flavors of apricot, raisin, or even cranberry -- but to be honest, it didn't bother me at all; this nondescript fruit-oatmeal cookie was a standout, offering delicious old-fashioned satisfaction in every bite.

Recipe: "Cranberry Apricot Oatmeal Cookies" from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook by Tom Douglas.