Apricot & White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

 

Summer is here! Well for me at least. What better way to celebrate than to munch on some apricot & white chocolate chip oatmeal cookies? 

 I've been looking through my recipes and photos of what I have made over the past few weeks and today I realized, where are all the sweets?! This is absurd and entirely unlike me. All throughout high school, I would only want to bake. My mom was becoming frustrated with what little knowledge I had of cooking and thought of baking as an easy method because all you had to do was follow the recipe exactly. I now understand what she meant, but who doesn't wan to eat sugar now and again? Or maybe all the time?

Anyway, during high school, my mom taught me how to bake pies. Banana cream pie, lemon meringue, wild berry, chocolate pudding, anything I could think of I made. Banana cream and lemon meringue were instantly my favorite and the ones I chose to submit in the local Malibu Pie Contest. For two years I won 1st and 2nd prize in the adult category. I was no amateur at baking because it's all I did with my free time. So now, here I am, the so called "baker" with very little to show on my blog. How come I don't even have a pie up to share with you all? Maybe that will come next!  

 

 Seeing as how my sweet tooth is extra strong today, I decided to bake up some fresh summer cookies! What I had in my kitchen were some apricots (I used Turkish), white chocolate chips and some rolled oats. You could substitute anything in place of these, like dark chocolate chips and cherries or white chocolate chips with cranberries. I have to say though, I've never had apricot cookies so I chose to experiment and wowwwww were they fantastic! I mean just pure bliss!

What's nice about this recipe is that if you aren't an oatmeal cookie fan, then you're in luck because the recipe doesn't call for many oats. Just enough is used to make them ooey gooey and chewy ;) I don't usually like to use a lot of white chocolate chips because they have a tendency to over-sweeten recipes, so I reduced the amount and added a little more dried apricot from the original recipe that sparked my interest. Below are the measurements I used.

 Mix the dry ingredients, including white sugar, tightly packed brown sugar and a full stick of butter.

 After adding the egg and vanilla extract, combine completely and gradually mix the dry ingredients in with the wet. (look below for dry ingredients.)

 Cut the apricots into 4 pieces and add them to the mixture. (Do not cut into 6 or 8 pieces because the apricots are mild enough that you won't taste them). Then toss in the white chocolate chips and mix till evenly distributed throughout the batter.

 1 1/2 tbs. cookie dough balls on a baking sheet, cooking in a 350 degree oven. After 8-10 minutes, the cookies will be golden brown and ready to remove from the oven. Place individual cookies on a cooling rack so that they don't overcook.

These cookies are nice and soft on the inside, while chewy and crispy on the outer edges. Such a delicious recipe and perfect for the summer. I'm sure if you wanted to substitute fresh apricots, that would be lovely as well! I will definitely make these again soon. Also, later in the night if you want a snack, warm them up just a little and don't forget to dip them in milk!

Apricot & White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies:

adapted from Closet Cooking

 Ingredients:

1/2 cup of butter (room temperature)

1/2 brown sugar (tightly packed)

1/2 white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of rolled oats

3/4 cup of dried apricots (each cut into 4 pieces/chopped)

1/2 white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl. Add the egg and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and salt. Mix the dry ingredients in with the wet.

Mix the rolled oats, apricots and white chocolate into the cookie batter.

Place 1 tbs or slightly larger balls onto a cookie sheet.

Place in the preheated oven and let bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove when golden brown.