This is a great holiday cookie recipe. It utilizes the same gluten free cookie flour blend from our previous cookie recipes, and it’s adapted from the Bouchon Bakery’s Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe by the master, Thomas Keller, so you know it has an amazing pedigree. Chef Keller doesn’t play around when it comes to his obsessive attention to detail—which we fully appreciate—but cracking each egg and straining it to remove the chalazae (the more liquid part of the white, and yes, that is a real word, so you can call off the Scrabble police), then weighing the eggs (to the gram) before adding them to the recipe was a little much for the home baker.
Chef Kyle prefers to save his obsessiveness for the actual eating of the cookies. I’m with Chef Kyle. He simply cracked one egg, added it to the dough, and the resulting cookies were still beautifully crisp around the edges and soft and gooey in the center. We won’t tell Thomas Keller if you won’t.
Another “tweak” to the recipe involves substituting dried cranberries for the regular raisins and adding white chocolate chips, giving the cookies a much more seasonal, holiday flair.
We also reduced the amount of cinnamon from the original version to let the other elements shine through, and the amount of kosher salt in the dough was reduced by a 1/4 teaspoon, and a few flakes of coarse sea salt are sprinkled over each cookie prior to baking, giving them a nice contrast, complexity and crunch.
Rather than baking six oversized cookies like the cookbook suggests, we opted for more traditionally-sized cookies, yielding about two dozen, so you’ll have more for hoarding *cough* sharing.
Updated 12/2020: I’ve made a few gradual tweaks to the recipe since originally posting it 5 (!) years ago. First, I’ve dialed up the salt just a smidge. Then, I’ve been in the habit of adding a couple tablespoons of nonfat milk powder (a baking hack I picked up from Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar), which adds an extra layer of creaminess to the cookie dough and really makes the cookies pop! Finally, I’ve been adding a tablespoon of orange zest, which, combined with the cinnamon, cranberry, and white chocolate makes these cookies taste like the embodiment of the holiday season. Enjoy!
Adapted from Bouchon Bakery.
You can find the recipe for Gluten Free Cookie Flour here!
- 144 grams Gluten Free cookie flour
- ½ tsp xanthan gum
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 1¼ tsp kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons nonfat milk powder
- 155 grams (1 stick + 3 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 140 grams (1/2 cup + 3½ tbsp lightly packed) dark brown sugar
- 69 grams (1/4 cup + 1½ tbsp) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 ¼ tsp pure vanilla extract
- 155 grams (2 cups) Gluten Free rolled oats
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- ¾ cup white chocolate chips
- Stir the flour, xanthan gum, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and milk powder into a medium bowl.
- Place the butter and orange zest in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Turn the mixer to medium-low speed and cream the butter and orange zest together.
- Add the sugars, and beat for 3-4 minutes, until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg and vanilla, mixing until just combined. Scrape down the bowl again.
- Add the combined dry ingredients in two additions, mixing for 20 seconds in between on low speed. Add the oats and mix on low speed until combined. Finally, add in the cranberries and white chocolate chips and mix on low speed until evenly combined. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
- Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats. Roll about 2 tbsp of dough into a ball, and space on prepared cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
- Bake the cookies for 12 - 14 minutes, or until golden brown. Set the pans on a cooling rack and allow the cookies to cool for 5 to 10 minutes, then transfer them onto the rack to cool completely.
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