Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies – Oatmeal cookies baked using dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and SPLENDA®.

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Confession: the real, honest, all truth reason I have had a dislike for baking…is because of cookies.

Making the dough: Piece of cake.

Dropping dollops of dough on baking sheets: Easy peasy.

Waiting 10-12 minutes to bake: No Sweat.

Repeating a million times to make the proper amount of cookies for the holidays: TORTURE.

There, I’ve admitted it, it’s out there. I feel so much better.

The problem is, I love cookies. They are small. I can eat one and not feel like I am blowing my dietary protocol with extra fat, calories, and sugar. But I just do not have the patience to make them.

I can trace back to when my aversion began. It was back in the late 90’s, the year escapes me, I am getting older, and there was so, so, so much baking to do to get ready for the holiday party Mom2 was throwing.

Plus, I was on a cookie making kick before that anyway, but come the end of the season, I was cookie’d-out and have remained so ever since. I might bake a batch 2-3 times a year because that’s the law of motherhood, or so I’ve been told.

When I do get around to baking cookies those 2-3 times a year, almost always it is these Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies. I fool myself in thinking they are a better cookie for me, since there are whole grains in the form of oats, “heart-healthy” (wink-wink) dark chocolate, dried cranberries to give a portion of fruit and I swap out my sugars using SPLENDA®.

Baking With SPLENDA®

I’ve been swapping the sugars out for both SPLENDA® Granulated No Calorie Sweetener and SPLENDA® Brown Sugar Blend (which does contain sugar) for a while now and it works and tastes perfect.

There is no texture difference when I use SPLENDA® vs regular sugars..unless I forget to pull them out of the oven in time and they turn to hockey pucks…but then that’s probably more my fault and less the fault of using SPLENDA®.

If you’ve never used SPLENDA® before, I’d recommend giving it a try. You can find it in the baking aisle of most grocery stores. For the granulated, it’s a measure for measure like sugar. But for the brown sugar blend, some non-fancy math conversion skills are needed. Luckily, they are printed right on the back label.

My dear friend Darla just moved into a new home a couple of days before Thanksgiving and I had often cooked in her old kitchen. In fact, a handful of recipes found on my blog were made in her kitchen.

I decided that these Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies needed to be the ‘christening’ recipe in her brand new kitchen. It was fun having a new environment to work with, even if I couldn’t find half the things I needed right away.

It was nice to be able to bake with her and her daughter along with my own, really the perfect way to kick off the holidays. Sadly the lighting was a bit off as the sun sunk quickly, but I still love these pictures for the tinted nostalgic holiday feel.

Holiday Desserts

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Brownies

Boozy Eggnog Banana Bread

Brazilian Brigadeiro

Chocolate Pear Cake

Coffee Lover’s Chocolate Mocha Cake

Frozen Caramel and Butter Pecan Pie

J&J Holiday Baking with Splenda

Want to see a short 13 second video on making these cookies with SPLENDA®? What holiday baking will you do this year using SPLENDA®?

Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: chocolate, cookie, cranberry

Servings: 2

Author: Michelle De La Cerda

Oatmeal cookies baked using dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and SPLENDA®.

Print

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup SPLENDA® Granulated No Calorie Sweetener
• 1/2 cup SPLENDA® Brown Sugar Blend
• 2 large eggs; room temp
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 cup oats
• 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. Add butter to electric mixer and cream until fluffy.
3. Add both SPLENDA® sugars and mix until blended.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, allowing the first to be fully incorporated before adding the next.
5. Add the vanilla.
6. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

7. Slowly, about 1/4 cup at a time, incorporate the flour mixture in to the wet ingredients in the mixer, taking care that the dry goods are fully mixed in before adding more.

8. Add the oats, then chocolate and finally the cranberries, a small amount at a time.
9. Using a kitchen teaspoon or cookie scooper, add a dollop of rounded dough to a prepared baking sheet.
10. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden.
11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 2 minutes, then transfer to a cooking rack. Repeat process until all cookies have been baked.

Thank you for sharing!