Red Barn Granola Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

Now that the Christmas cookies have been eaten, it’s time to think about baking some nutritious cookies for your cross-country ski jaunts or winter snowshoe hikes.

Julie LaFleur, who sells handmade artisan batches of Red Barn Granola at Atkinson’s recently joined Marie Gallo on her Eye on Sun Valley cooking show to show her how to add her newest variety of granola—Cranberry White Chocolate—to dried cranberries, crystalized ginger and white chocolate chips to make some scrumptious cookies.

IF—and this is a big IF—the raw cookie dough actually makes into and out of the oven, you’ll find these are cookies that will fuel any occasion this winter.

RED BARN GRANOLA CRANBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE COOKIES

 Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp orange emulsion/extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

2 cups Red Barn Granola’s Cranberry White Chocolate granola

1/2 cup dried cranberries (recommended but optional)

1/2 cup white chocolate chips (recommended but optional)

¼ cup crystalized ginger (recommended but optional)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract and orange emulsion/extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined. Fold in the granola. If using, fold in dried cranberries, white chocolate and crystalized ginger.

If you have time, chill dough in the refrigerator for a few hours, if not then…. Drop 2 oz. of dough (large golf ball size) onto baking sheets, evenly spaced apart. Bake 9-10 mins. Don’t overbake…gooey is good! Let cookies sit for a minute before transferring onto a cooling rack.