Cranberry Christmas Cookies
Get ready for the holidays with this easy and delicious recipe for Cranberry Christmas Cookies! Perfect for a holiday cookie exchange, gatherings, gift-giving, or just to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter (softened)
- ¾ cup white granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 cup dried cranberries (finely chopped)
- Ghirardelli white chocolate chips or melting chocolate wafers.
Instructions
Recipe Prep
- In a medium bowl whisk together the flour and salt. Set aside until needed.
- Chop the dried cranberries and set aside.
Make the cookie dough
- In a large mixing bowl beat the softened butter, granulated sugar and almond extract until light and fluffy.
- Slowly on low beat the dry ingredients into the butter mixture ⅓ at a time. Beat until combined or your mixer starts to strain. If the mixer strains switch to a wooden spoon.
- Add the dried cranberries to the bowl and using a wooden spoon fold the dried cranberries into the cookie batter until evenly mixed in. Don't use a beater or the cranberry pieces will break apart.
- Turn the cranberry cookie dough out onto a piece of parchment and divide the dough into two equal halves.
- Shape each half into a log about 1 ½ inched thick and 11 inches long.
- Tightly wrap each log in plastic wrap and gently place the soft cookie dough log on a cookie sheet. The soft dough is fragile. If the log gets out of shape gently roll it back and forth until the surface is smooth again.
- Refrigerate the cookie dough for at a minimum of 2 hours. Overnight chilling is best for slice and bake cookies.
Baking the cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. degrees.
- Line each baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Remove one log of the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Leave the second log of dough in the refrigerator so it doesn't soften while your working with the first log of cookie dough.
- Unwrap the cookie dough and slice the cookies into ¼ inch slices. Arrange the sliced cookies on a parchment lined the baking sheet one inch apart.
- Bake the cookies in the preheated oven 9 to 11 minutes or just until the edges start to turn golden brown.
- Cool the cookies on the baking sheet 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Decorating with white chocolate
- Cookies must be complexly cooled before you dip them into the warm melted white chocolate.
- Melt the white chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave at 20, 10, and 5 second increments. Once the chocolate is almost completely melted with just a few lumps stir until the lumps melt.
- Hold a cookie by the edge and dip half way into the white chocolate.
- Place the cookies on a wire cooling rack or arrange the cookies on a cold baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Allow the white chocolate to harden before storing or serving.
- Makes about 88 two inch cookies.
Recipe Expert Tips
- Fresh cranberries would not well with this recipe.
- Use room temperature butter. How to tell if the butter is soft enough? When beating the butter if you can see small lumps of butter after a minute of beating the butter is not soft enough yet. Set the bowl aside for 30 minutes and try again.
- Do not over mix the dough or the cookies with be tough.
- Using parchment paper or a silicon baking mat will allow the cookies to bake evenly.
- The cookie dough should be cold when baking or the warm dough will spread instead or holding its shape. Keep the dough refrigerated before slicing and baking.
Nutrition
Serving: 2CookiesCalories: 59kcalCarbohydrates: 7gProtein: 1gFat: 3gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.1gMonounsaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 6mgSodium: 10mgPotassium: 14mgFiber: 0.2gSugar: 5gVitamin A: 65IUVitamin C: 0.02mgCalcium: 8mgIron: 0.1mg
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