It must be tradition by now that the day after Thanksgiving we always whip out our binders of recipes and make our selections for our Christmas Cookie List for the season. These are making a return and they promise to become one of the “greatest hits.” Cranberry White Chocolate Pecan Oatmeal Cookies have a lot going on, (taking nominations for a nickname!) but they’re such a popular cookie because we think there is so often an overload of chocolate in holiday dessert lineups that folks just want a little something after dinner that won’t over power the palette. Thanks to our dear friend Bev in Tennessee whose recipe we’ve adapted these from!

Cranberry White Chocolate Pecan Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
1 ½ sticks (12T.) softened butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. salt
1 ½ t. pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 ½ t. baking powder
1 cup plus 2 T. flour
2 ¼ c. old fashioned oats
¾ c. dried cranberries
¾ c. white chocolate chips
¾ c. chopped pecans

Directions:
1. Cream butter and sugars together with the spices.
2. Add the vanilla.
3. Add the eggs one at a time.
4. Combine the flour, oats, and baking powder together in a bowl and whisk. Toss a spoonful of the flour in with the dried cranberries, break apart any berries that are stuck together.
5. Add the flour mixture a ½ cup at a time. Make sure flour is completely mixed each time.
6. Fold in the dried cranberries, white choc. chips and pecans.
7. Scoop out all of the dough as individual cookie balls onto the baking sheet, refrigerate to chill for at least 1-3 hours. We used a 2-inch (#30) scoop.
8. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
9. Place chilled cookie balls on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Keep the dough balls cold in the refrigerator between batches.
10. Let the baked cookies rest on baking sheets for 5 min. before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes:
Yields 24-26 cookies. You can also freeze these cookies when they are in the dough ball stage and add another 2 minutes to the baking time.