In honor of kicking off breakfast week, lets start with a bang and celebrate! Heat up the oven and bake up some breakfast cookies.
As you saw in a post last week, I’ve been craving all things oat. So it only seemed fitting to ramp up my gluten-free oatmeal raisin cookies. Personally, oatmeal raisin cookies are already tiptoeing on being a breakfast cookie. But the addition of fresh orange zest and juice and swapping out the raisins for dried cranberries definitely solidify these as breakfast cookies to me.
The first bite literally tastes of orange, giving that fresh orange juice effect, reminiscent of Sunday brunch. Orange zest and fresh orange juice are added to give the dough that breakfast orange kick. And a helpful tip; add the fresh orange zest to the brown sugar. Mix the zest into the sugar to release all of the oils from the orange skin. This helps ensure the zest is not only fully incorporated into the butter, but the rest of the cookie as well. As for the orange itself, I prefer to use Cara Cara oranges because they’re a bit sweeter and less acidic than traditional navels. But feel free to use the option of navel or blood orange if needed.
Also, I prefer and use naturally dried fruit. I prefer the tang of the cranberries in these cookies and don’t want additional sugars on the dried fruit to interfere with the flavor. I recommend going this way if you’re adding dried fruit to trail mix as well. Plus, the tang of the cranberry pairs really well with the sweetness of the Cara Cara orange.
A tip for the breakfast cookie dough is to put it in the refrigerator for thirty minutes prior to baking. I find the cookies are more crumbly and have a tendency to fall apart if I skip this step. If you want these cookies more as a crumble on top of yogurt in the morning, then by all means skip setting the dough in the fridge. But if you’re looking to keep these as cookies, I highly recommend it sits in the fridge. Because these are gluten-free and use almond flour, this is pretty typical.
I highly recommend eating these cookies for breakfast because we all need an excuse to eat cookies for breakfast. Enjoy them with your favorite cup of coffee or tea. But, in case you don’t want cookies for breakfast, they’re good in the afternoon too. Trust me, I taste tested them to make sure.
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (a heaping 1/2 tsp)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 Cara Cara orange, zested
- 1 1/2 tbsp fresh orange juice
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups gluten-free oats
- 3/4 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
In a bowl, mix together the almond flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, add the brown sugar and orange zest. Using a spoon, mix and press the zest into the sugar for at least 1 minute to release and evenly disperse the citrus oils into the sugar.
Using an electric mixer (or in that of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment) cream together the butter and brown sugar for 1 minute until combined. Add the egg, fresh orange juice, and vanilla extract and continue to mix until fully combined.
Using a wooden spoon, add in the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Pour in the oats and dried cranberries and stir until fully combined.
Cover the cookie dough and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
After 20 minutes of the dough being refrigerated, preheat the oven to 360 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once the dough has been in the fridge for the full 30 minutes, use a cookie or large ice cream scooper to scoop out portions of dough and place them on the baking sheet.
Bake for 11 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are lightly golden brown and the top is set. Let cookies sit for a couple of minutes on the baking tray before transferring them to a wire cooling rack. Wait 5 minutes and then enjoy!
