These pumpkin oatmeal cranberry cookies are a fun autumnal riff on the classic oatmeal raisin cookie. They use browned butter, which lends a nutty toffee complexity to the cookie, as well helps reduce the cakey texture of the cookie. I also cook down the pumpkin puree to help concentrate the flavor and reduce the cakey cookie. Both steps are essential to creating that ideal chewy oatmeal cookie texture that isn’t cakey or spongy. The cookie dough does require you chill it in the fridge for an hour or overnight so plan accordingly. If you don’t chill the dough, the cookie will spread a lot when baked.
Brown the butter by placing it in a large skillet. Cook the butter on high heat, stirring constantly, until it melts, then reduce the heat to medium. Continue to cook and stir the butter until the milk solids have turned golden brown and smell fragrant and nutty. Remove from heat and immediately pour into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, making sure to scrape out any brown bits with a heatproof silicone spatula.
Place the pumpkin puree in the same skillet (no need to clean it). Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until the puree has reduced down to 3/4 cup, about 5 to 6 minutes depending on your stovetop. Scrape the reduced pumpkin puree into the bowl with the browned butter.
Add the brown sugar, white sugar, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, baking soda, and salt to the bowl. Mix until all the ingredients are evenly distributed and uniform in color. Add the egg yolk and mix in. Scrape down the sides and bottom with a silicone spatula.
Add the rolled oats and flour and slowly mix, turning the mixer on and off if necessary, to keep the dry ingredients from flying up, until all the dry ingredients are absorbed. The cookie dough will look very loose and wet. Scrape down the sides and bottom again.Add the dried cranberries and slow mix them in. I like to do this by hand, with a wooden spoon, but the mixer on slow speed works too.Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for 1 hour to chill and firm up. You can leave the dough to chill for up to 2 days if you wish.
Once the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350°F. Once the dough has firmed up and chilled, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. Scoop out enough dough to make a 1-inch round ball and place it on the baking sheet. Continue to do this, spacing the cookie dough out about 2 inches apart. Bake in the oven for 14 to 16 minutes, or until the top and edges of the cookie look golden brown and slightly darker than the top center. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, and then move them to a wire cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.