Cherry Apricot Oatmeal Cookies

I really like these cookies.  I've substituted half raisins for the cherries just because that's what I had on hand.  I added a teensy bit of water and they held together much better.  I will try the silicone idea mentioned above.  Yum Yum Yum.  

Way better than expected in flavor and texture.  Accidentally left out the almond butter and they turned out fine without it--I think they would be heavy and too oily with it. I combined the wet ingredients in my food processor and processed and scraped down several times to break down the dates.  Baked in muffin pan with lightly oiled (grapeseed oil) silicone muffin cups (2 1/2 inch medium sized). If you don't have silicone muffin cups, get some, they are wizard!  I half filled the muffin cups and then with slightly oiled bottom of a water class, I super pressed the mixture into the cups--they ended up about 5/8 inch in height.  In my view, the key to success with these is to really compress the mixture into the muffin cups.   I baked at 350 in my convection oven for 15 minutes.  The edges were crispy and almost starting to over brown; I pulled from the oven, let the cool for very short minute and then turned muffin cups upside down on a cooling rack--cookies fell right out--no breakage or crumbling. Very important step as they will get gooey if you leave in muffin cups as moisture escapes to the edges.  I'm very careful about my blood glucose levels--these cookies seem pretty sweet to me--diabetics, please be aware.  Some might say these are more like granola bars than cookies. 

Although I like the combination of apricot and cherry flavors, I found the cookies/squares a bit bland.  The only change I made to the recipe was that I used about 1/3 the amount of almond extract called for (I ran out), so perhaps that significantly decreased the flavor. I'm also hoping someone can advise how to make them more moist.  I doubled the recipe and baked half the mixture in an 8x8 glass baking pan (15 minutes) and the other half in a muffin tray (12 minutes).  Both came out quite dry.  

These are great! I used my stick blender to disperse the dates through the banana mixture. Rolled the dough into balls and put them on parchment paper, then used the wetted bottom of a drinking glass to flatten them before baking. 

I put them in a loaf pan, topped them with dark chocolate, baked and cut into squares. Delicious!

AWESOME COOKIES!! A lot of chopping but WORTH IT! I even doubled the recipe!! I also folded in unsalted, raw pistachios.

I use organic ingredients AND do my best to avoid typical issues w/'dried fruits' (same for cartoned nut/seed 'milks'): preservatives and sugars in all their various, disguised names appearing on the back ingredient list. Not so easy to find ONE INGREDIENT dried fruits, especially cherries and cranberries - I often have to special order them.

My husband liked these even more than my #1 favorite cookie (Cathy Fisher's Oatmeal Raisin Cookie:). I rank this one 2nd or tie;)

Thank you for this great recipe!! It's a keeper.