Mango White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

posted on January 16, 2014 by Bianca Garcia

Some of my best memories and a lot of my relationships involve food. With food, I’ve reminisced, laughed, healed a broken heart, gotten asked out, even went on a date with caramel stuck in my hair. I’ve showed up to countless parties bringing sweet treats – desserts that more often than not disappear long before the party is over.

This batch of cookies is the latest treats I brought to a party. It was a dinner party with some of my dearest friends: gals and guys I’ve been friends with for almost 20 years! We’ve certainly shared plenty of memories and big life moments, and we’ve certainly consumed more than a fair amount of food and drinks and desserts.

These Mango White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies are my first baking project to use Philippine dried mangoes – which I consider THE BEST in the world. They’re sweet and chewy and almost sticky. The perfect complement to creamy white chocolate and toothsome oatmeal.

The cookie base is similar to one of my favorite cookies: White Chocolate Cherry Cookies with Sea Salt. In fact the recipe is just an adaptation of those cookies – I simply decreased the flour a little bit, added in oatmeal, swapped dried mangoes for the dried cranberries, and omitted the sprinkling of sea salt on top (although you can definitely still do that!) I also used dark brown sugar for a hint of molasses flavor.

The cookies are big and soft and chewy, with slight caramel undertones from the brown sugar and the flavor that develops from baking white chocolate. The mangoes contribute a bright flavor, blending well with the sweet white chocolate chips. I bought my dried mangoes in the Philippines, but it’s easy to find in grocery stores in the states (I like the ones from Trader Joe’s).

I brought these cookies to a room full of familiar faces (plus new additions of babies), and I was welcomed with even bigger smiles and tighter hugs. While the party was in full swing, it warmed my heart to see my friends enjoy the treats. Cookies are a great way to spread some love.

If you’re bringing these to a party where you don’t know a lot of people, don’t worry because by the end of the night, you’ll have made more friends as they will come up to you and say that these are some of the best cookies they’ve ever had. Cookies are also a great way to make people warm up to you. Promise.

Yield: around 20 cookies

White Chocolate Mango Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cups butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 medium eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup chopped dried mangoes
1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, combine the softened butter and sugars. Mash out any lumps with the back of a wooden spoon then whisk together using a fork or a wire whisk until well-blended and creamy.
Add eggs, vanilla extract, salt, and baking soda, and mix until smooth. Stir in flour and oatmeal until evenly incorporated (do not overmix). Fold in dried mangoes and white chocolate chips.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours, up to two days.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Using a cookie scoop (mine made balls that were about 2 tablespoons of dough), portion out dough on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake in the middle rack one sheet at a time, for 12 minutes, or until cookies are lightly golden. I ended up with 20 big cookies. If you're making smaller cookies, you can reduce baking time by a minute or two.
Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before serving or storing.

Recipe

Make these cookies. Bring these to parties. Bring these to meetings. Heck, even bring these to dates. You’ll make plenty of good memories with these.