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From what I gather you guys visit my blog & make my recipes because you are craving something a little out of the ordinary. I like to stir the pot & create new versions of classics. I love putting new ideas into your creative minds. These Cranberry Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are no exception. Yes, I like to bring you goodies – but I also try for the most part to bring you health. Why? Why not.
These days I always have a few bags of fresh cranberries in the fridge. We love to have big batches cranberry sauce for dunking, dipping and eating alone as a snack. Little tart ruby red cranberries can be flavored in so many ways & sweetened to taste with any sweetener. My Cranberry Sauce with Pear & Pomegranatehas become a staple recipe. It was time to try these berries in cookies.
We have been cooking with a lot of ricotta cheese too, in both sweets and savories. I got really excited about it during Halloween with my Pumpkin Ricotta Stuffed French Toast. Now I always have a big tub of it in our fridge.
In baked goods it keeps things nice & moist and adds a cakey texture. These cookies have the texture of a muffin top & I believe it’s from the cheese. Ricotta is also nice as a light snack instead of greek yogurt(which we love too), with a small pour of maple syrup and a hint of cinnamon.
Pumpkin& all of the spices associated with it are delicious this time of year & we have not yet tired of them. Quite frankly I could munch on these flavors all year long. With high fiber oats & whole wheat pastry flour these cookies are the equivalent of a power bar.
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Cranberry Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies
Makes about 24 – Â 2 inch cookies
NOTES
- These cookies are great straight out of the oven, I like to re-heat ours in the toaster oven before serving when that option is available.
- I used canned pumpkin purée in this recipe. Food For My Family has a great Homemade Pumpkin Purée post.
- I used Coach’s Oats in this recipe, you can also use Old Fashioned Rolled Oats, not “quick cook oats.”
- Store cookies at room temperature in an airtight container & move to fridge after a few days.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour + a few tablespoons
1 cup Old Fashioned Rolled Oats  – or- 1 cup Coach’s Oats
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 teaspoonsStevia Powderor to taste
1 cup unsweetened Pumpkin Purée
1 cup low fat Ricotta Cheese
1 large Egg whisked, room temperature
2 tablespoons melted unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon pure Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup Dried Cranberries + extra for topping
METHOD
Preheat oven to 350ËšF with the rack in the middle of oven. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine all dry ingredients (excluding cranberries) in a medium bowl. Combine all wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together to form cookie batter. Toss the dried cranberries with a few tablespoons of pastry flour & gently fold into the batter. Drop a spoonful of batter onto the cookie sheet & press cranberries into the tops if desired. *I used a 2 tablespoon coffee scoop to portion out the batter.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown. Let cookies cool for a few minutes & then transfer to cooling racks.
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Variations
- Add chocolate chips, white chocolate or little bits of soft caramel for a sweeter treat.
- Use dried blueberries, brown or golden raisins, chopped dates, dice dried apricots instead of or with the cranberries.
- Add a handful of chopped toasted nuts. Peanuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, macadamia, pistachio would all be great.
- Drizzle your favorite glaze over the tops of your cookies.
- Serve with ice cream or freshly whipped cream.
Cranberry Cookie Links
- Dark Chocolate Cranberry CookiesTwo Peas and Their Pod
- Lemon Polenta Cranberry CookiesOh for the Love of Food
- Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies The Delicious Life
- Pistachio Cranberry Cookie Sticks Desert Candy
- White Chocolate Orange Cranberry Cookies My Kitchen Journey
Yum, yum, yum. I adore pumpkin with cranberry.
Shaina: Yet again your pumpkin puree is linked to! It is now a permanent addition to my recipes whenever I use pumpkin 🙂
Georgia: I am heading right over to enter your giveaway now.
I love this idea of a healthy yet flavorful cookie. You always come up with the most unique and good-for-you recipes, Marla! Perfect fall flavors. Thanks for sharing. Also, I’m having a cookies and cookbook giveaway today that you should enter!
Mmmmmmmmm, healthy AND tasty! Can’t beat that combination!!
i’m pretty sure these just made my heart grow 3 sizes! yum!
Awesome! How colorful and beautiful these cookies are! I just love popping in to see your gorgeous posts 🙂 Have a great day girl!
Love all these ingredients so together I would love them too~great clic of the cookies and cranberries!
A perfect holiday combo! So festive and yummy.
Cheers,
Rosa
Yum. These looks great, and seem very moist! I think I’d add some chocolate chips to mine. We always make a chocolate chip cranberry cake around the holidays. Maybe I should consider adding some pumpkin to that!
Perfect flavors for this time of year!
How cute are these babies?! I love them girl!
Great cookie recipe!!
I’m on a cranberry kick too 🙂 These sound yummy and look great!
I love that I can always count on you for a healthy cookie! These look delicious. I love snacking on cranberry sauce plain, too! Such a sweet treat.
I always knew cranberry and pumpkin were BFF’s, love them!
How cool that you added ricotta cheese to them! It adds a nice protein punch too.
Great and perfectly healthy, with 0 sugar cookie recipe! Pics are so good and drool-worthy!
These look lovely. Great recipe!
What a great cookie idea, looks delicious and healthy.
I love everything about these cookies! And I have a huge container of ricotta in the fridge that I need to use!
I adore everything about these. Love the touch of ricotta.
Yummy Christmas comfort food. Only you could make a classic even better. Amazing photos! I love that it’s a power bar and a cookie. The kids will never know!
i love cranberries and become like a squirrel in the fall…i buy lots of them, freeze them and store them “up for the winter”. these look fantastic. sweet + tart, i really don’t think it gets much better than that!
Power bar meets cookie sounds great to me! I love these Marla, and I bet they would be terrific as a pre-workout snack. They’re adorable too, the way they look almost reminds me of jam thumprints…love it!
Now those are stunning photographs and gorgeous healthy looking cookies…. wildly gorgeous. What is the program you use to write on your photos. I love your texts!
🙂
valerie
Wow. You’ve really stepped it up a notch with these flavours, pumpkin & cranberry.., yum 🙂
What a wonderful idea to use ricotta to add moisture and flavor to these healthy cookies. We always have a bag of fresh cranberries in the fridge at this time of year, too. We simply can’t get enough of homemade cranberry sauce.
you definitely post recipes that can only be considered out of the ordinary. they also happen to be fantastic, and this is no exception. ricotta. in cookies. bizarre and awesome. 🙂
Grace: Hopefully not too bizarre to deter! I love combining unusual ingredients (as you know.) These actually do make sense once they bake up. Ricotta cheese is so neutral in flavor & the small amount of fat it has adds such great texture.
Dara: I would figure you guys keep a bunch of fresh cranberries in the fridge this time of year. Essential, huh!
Valerie: “Wildly gorgeous” I like that. That statement is a keeper!
Faith: They do look like thumbprint cookies & yes, I do eat them as a pre & post workout snack.
Susan: I love the “squirrel” idea. Must freeze a bunch of berries for future cravings.
I second Faith’s remark about looking like jam thumbprints. You could add a few chocolate chips to mix it up, too!
Adair: The chocolate chips would sure be a welcomed addition to these cookies. Butterscotch would be good too…hmmmmm.
A power thumbprint cookies! I like recipes like this…classic with a twist.
Ooh power bar meets cookie? So this means that it’s healthier too! I like that 😀
I just saw a beautiful display of fresh cranberries floating in a pool of water at our local health foods store. I wanted to get some so badly but I had no idea what to do with them! Now I’m eager to try your cranberry sauce, and the cookies look amazing as well. I have some dried cranberries in the pantry, so those may be used very soon. 🙂
I love your healthy take on sweets. I think it’s what I admire most about your efforts (well, that and your incredible photos!).
These cookies look amazing. I love a cookie that I won’t feel guilty eating for breakfast!
I love the healthy aspects of this cookie and can only imagine how moist the ricotta makes them. These are definitely a welcome edition to the traditional not-so-good-for you Christmas cookies 🙂
I love the look of these, Marla. A great combo of flavours and they look a far sight healthier than your average cookie. I know I could get my kids to eat them and not know they were missing out on anything!
Marla ~ I love you, I really, really love you because you’re a girl after my own heart when it comes to cooking/baking; it’s wonderful to enjoy the sweets but man, eating empty calories just isn’t good for us – I am so guilty of not staying on the straight and narrow road! And for someone who definitely needs to lose some pounds, these are just delightful – sweet, yet oatmeal and cranberries have some health benefits – just terrific!!!
Smith Bites: I am so happy you can appreciate my healthier cookies. They really are a joy to munch & we might as well feel no guilt for a change, right??
Liz: Thanks, perhaps you (or I) need to write another cookbook & include these cookies.
Not only are your photos beautiful and playful, the recipe looks delicious. I love anything with pumpkin!! I know how much sugar and butter goes into most cookies, so I appreciate your healthy goodies.
I am an oatmeal cookie fanatic. I love how there’s pumpkin and ricotta in these, not to mention cranberries. Whenever I make oatmeal cookies my hubby always wants me to add raisins but sometimes I want a change – cranberries is a great idea. Great flavors. They can only be delicious!
Trish: The cranberries are a nice change from the raisins – both together in one cookie would be very tasty too. You can make 1/2 with cranberries for you & 1/2 with raisins for the hubs. That way everyone is simply satisfied 🙂
ooh I bet these cookies have a wonderful texture and a little tang from the ricotta – my mouth is watering!
These look fabulous. Never tried cranberry in oatmeal cookies!
Oh my, these look gorgeous! And so healthy!!!
YUM!!!! Pumpkin and Cranberry cookies! I LOVE it!!……I love the idea of adding chocolate chips too!!!
I still have a bag of cranberries in my freezer. I was thinking of making cranberry coffee cake, but since I’ve made that before, I am itching to try them in these cookies instead. They look so festive for the holidays, too.
Just made these and they turned out too mushy…what did I do wrong??? no matter how long I cooked them they tasted raw and mushy inside?? any ideas??
forgot to add..I used some brown sugar 1/2c instead of stevia should I have decreased the ricotta or something??
Oh wow 🙂 these look great! found you on pinterest and pinned to my board. yum!!
Don’t take this wrong; but I am about to have an O_____ reading these pumpkin recipes!!! YUM!! I turned 50 last Wednesday and just looked at my husband and said, “I am buying some Popsicle molds!!!” However, to then read a recipe calling for ricotta, cranberry AND pumpkin…..I am spellbound!!! I just found this site this evening and I am ecstatic! Thank you!
Hi Margot! You are hilarious! I am glad that you found my blog too. I am a bit obsessed with pumpkin as well. I have sooooo many good recipes with that ingredient on the way in the Fall & Winter months. Stay tuned!
How do I make them gluten free?