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Crunchy Double Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

These cranberry oatmeal cookies have both white and dark chocolate in them. My family likes them best crunchy out of the freezer.

This fall, my husband and I will be celebrating surviving four years of marriage. I don’t know if anyone else has had the same experience, but a few weeks ago J and I actually got into an argument over how long we’ve been married. I said three, he said four. September 2014. Yep. Four years this year. It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been four years. Then again, we’re both confused about how long we’ve actually been together. But that story involves a place called denial and lots of alcohol. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I still have yet to dry clean my wedding dress, and I still have photographs I need to buy frames for. In fact, I just found photos from one of the two showers we had a few months before we got married that my grandmother insisted on throwing. I’ve mentioned her party-planning expertise before—everyone says she threw the absolute best parties, legendary even—but let’s just say that our shower, which also happened to be the last party she threw before she passed away, wasn’t her best.

Despite being in her 80’s and not getting around very well (or at all if I’m being honest), she insisted on doing everything herself. The weekend of our party, we were in the middle of a heat wave where the temperatures were over 100º. Add the high heat and being in a house with no air conditioning and you have a disaster looming before you. The day before, she spent the majority of the day making the largest batch of spinach dip I’ve ever seen (it actually melted the following day under the hot summer sun). Looking back, I can see the irony in how the day of our shower unfolded.

The party was more for her than for J and me. She invited a handful of her friends from the good old days, some of whom I had only met a handful of times. So, I got there early to help her set up and put the finishing touches on a few dishes so she could relax and get herself ready. Expecting to find her in the kitchen, I actually found her still in bed looking like a hot mess, unable to breathe yet still smoking like a chimney. She had melted like the spinach dip would hours later. To make a long story short, my grandmother actually found herself being carted off by my mother to the emergency room just as party guests began to arrive.  

My poor mother actually missed the entire party dealing with her extremely stubborn mother who refused to be admitted despite clearly needing medical intervention. By the time my mother returned from the hospital, the majority of the food had either been eaten or spoilt by the hot temperatures, and all that was left to eat was a chocolate cake that I never had a slice of and the most delicious chocolate chip oatmeal cranberry cookies either of us had ever tasted. 

After some detective work on my end, I found out who brought them to the party and practically begged for the recipe. They ended up being a Craisins® recipe straight from the back of the back of Craisins®. 

The recipe below obviously isn’t the original Oceanspray recipe, but every time I make this version I am immediately reminded of that chaotic July day where we laughed, cried, and shook our heads at the stubbornness of my beloved grandmother. The original cookie recipe makes a softer/fluffier cookie, while my spin is chewy and crisp, and best eaten straight from the tin of cookies you have hidden in the back of your freezer.

A note on baking: The cookies will look slightly undercooked when they’re ready to come out of the oven. It’s vital that you leave the cookies on the sheet for at least five minutes before moving to a cooling rack.