Cookie Blog Hop - Chocolate Cranberry Nut Cookies

These yummy little cookies taste like chocolaty brownies packed with tart cranberries and crunchy walnuts.  Chocolate Cranberry Nut Cookies are as quick and easy to make as other drop style cookies and are free of processed sugar.

This recipe for a naturally sweetened chocolate cookie is a versatile one; we can add the cranberries and walnuts, or we can forego those ingredients and customize it by adding coconut, grain sweetened chocolate chips, raisins, cherries, or anything else that might taste good inside a chocolate cookie.  If aesthetics are important for your cookie tray,  and you don't like the way drop cookies look, you can always flatten them a bit after they are placed on the baking sheet.  I personally don't care all that much because it all tastes the same to me when they are done, so I just drop, and pop them into the oven.  Based on the outcome of the tender texture, I think the main recipe might also work as a brownie if a few tablespoons of milk is added to the dough/batter - I'll try it out and get back to you.

A tip about using natural sweeteners: when it is not desirable to have one prominent flavor in a cookie that needs to have several flavors working in synergy, it is a good idea to combine two different natural sweeteners rather than just using one or another.  Because I added cocoa to this simple drop cookie, neither honey nor maple syrup (the two sweeteners upon which I most rely) is a flavor I really wanted to be prominent to overshadow the chocolate.  By combining the two sweeteners in about a 2:1 ratio, neither the maple nor the honey flavors stand out in this cookie, but the sweetness all there, turning the cocoa into a chocolaty bunch of goodness that does a fantastic job of enveloping the tart "pop" from cranberries.

As with all naturally sweetened baked goods, allow enough time for them to cool and rest so the natural sweetener can do it's naturally sweet thing (one hour, at the very least).

Now that my holiday cookie tray is amply and beautifully filled with lovely cookies from the recipes posted to the #cookielove blog hop, I'm working on some great appetizers to share with you all in the upcoming weeks!

Chocolate Cranberry Nut Cookies
makes about 3 1/2 dozen

• 2/3 c butter (1 stick plus 3 Tbs)
• 1/2 c raw honey
• 1/3 c pure maple syrup
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract (such as Simply Organic Vanilla Extract)
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 3/4 c unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/2 c high quality natural cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 c raw cranberries, roughly chopped
• 1 c raw walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large bowl, beat the butter until fluffy (about 20-30 seconds).  Add honey, maple syrup, egg, and vanilla. Beat until combined.

Stir in the wheat flour, unbleached all purpose flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt until combined.

Fold in the cranberries and walnuts.

Drop by rounded teaspoons 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8-10 minutes or until done.  Cool completely on wire racks.

Please join in on the #cookielove fun by linking up any cookie recipe from the month of December 2011.  Don't forget to link back to this post so that your readers know to stop by the #cookielove event!  The twitter hashtag is #cookielove.

CookieLove Blog Hop Co-Hosts
Badger Girl Learns to Cook
Baking and Cooking, A Tale of Two Loves
Big Fat Baker
Bloc de recetas
Bon a croquer
Cafe TerraBlog
Cake Duchess
Creative Cooking Corner
Easily Good Eats
Georgiecakes
Hobby and More
Knitstamatic
Mike's Baking
Mis Pensmientos
No One Likes Crumbley Cookies
Oh Cake
Queen's Notebook
Savoring Every Bite
Simply Reem
Soni's Food For Thought
Teaspoon of Spice
That Skinny Chick Can Bake!!!
The Art of Cooking Real Food
The Spicy RD
The Wimpy Vegetarian
Vegetarian Tastebuds
Vegan Yack Attack