White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies
It’s National Cookie Day and ’tis the season to bake cookies. Especially soft and chewy ones that are loaded with cranberries and white chocolate chips. These cookies were inspired by a two recent recipes. First, from my love of the Sugar-Doodle Vanilla Cookies I made a couple weeks ago. That dough is made using good old-fashioned simple ingredients. There’s nothing fancy, or specialty about it but the resulting cookies taste exceedingly special. Never under-estimate the power of butter and sugar. Compared to the more recent Chocolate Chip and Chunk Cookies, which is my new favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies, the Sugar-Doodle dough is a bit sweeter and more delicate. I knew it would be the perfect dough base to support copious amounts of tart dried cranberries and sweet white chocolate morsels.
Additionally, I couldn’t get the Cranberry Bliss Bars out of my mind. They’re loaded with cranberries and oodles of white chocolate, baked in a soft and tender bar that’s a dead ringer for the Starbucks version. I have to resist the urge to go back for seconds, or thirds. It’s a good thing the batch size is only eight. This recipe is an ode to Cranberry Bliss Bars, in cookie form. There is nothing worse than an under-stuffed, under-loaded, under-sauced or just under-whelming dessert. If it’s a chocolate chip cookie, I use enough chocolate chips and also add chocolate chunks to ensure I know it’s a chocolate. Or I use chocolate five ways. If it’s a piece of cake, I liberally glaze it, ganache it, or stud it with a wall-like layer of streusel topping. Live in abundance. And I abundantly used dried cranberries and white chocolate chips, and dough really couldn’t hold much more.
Living in abundance can be a double-edge sword and this is the season for it. Everywhere I turn there’s a holiday cookie tray, dessert platter with fudge on it, or another specialty holiday product for sale in the grocery store with a ‘limited time only’, heightening my urgency to have it now. The nice thing about this dried cranberry cookies recipe is that it’s a smaller-batch recipe, yielding about 16 cookies, not dozens and dozens. Double the recipe if you need more abundance than I do. The cookies have chewy edges and tender, soft, pillowy centers. They’re moist and are bursting with texture. Each bite is full of something chewy. Either a tart and wrinkly cranberry or sweet and smooth white chocolate. As the cookies bake, the white chocolate melts and meshes with the buttery dough in a scrumptious way. A cross between a chewy sugar cookie, a fluffy snickerdoodle, and a Cranberry Bliss Bar, they’re the best of all worlds and a new holiday favorite.
What’s in White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies?
To make these white chocolate dried cranberry cookies, you’ll need:
Unsalted butter Granulated sugar Light brown sugar Egg Cream or milk Vanilla extract All-purpose flour Bread flour Baking soda Salt Dried cranberries White chocolate chips
How to Make White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
The dough comes together in minutes. Cream together butter, sugars, an egg, vanilla, a splash of cream or milk, then add the flour and mix-ins. I used a combination of both bread and all-purpose flours because bread flour produces chewier cookies and I love a good chew-fest. In order to get maximum height and to ensure the cookies spread as little as possible while baking, the dough must be chilled prior to baking. You can make this dough up to 5 days in advance and allow it to remain in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake the cookies. Bake one or two cranberry white chocolate chip cookies at a time, or make the whole batch at once.
Do I Have to Use Bread Flour?
Exclusively using all-purpose is fine but the resulting cookies likely won’t be quite as chewy or have as much height. Bread flour also adds increased structure, height, and rise to baked goods, thanks to it’s higher gluten content. These sweet and golden cookies baked up tall and proud.
How to Store Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Tips for Making White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
You can make this recipe using plain dried cranberries, or I also love using the orange-scented ones from Trader Joe’s. If you don’t have white chocolate chips on hand, feel free to chop up a chocolate bar. And if you have more patience than I do, you could even drizzle white chocolate over these cookies or dunk half into a bowl of white chocolate. The cookies don’t need it, but I bet that would be delicious!
More Cranberry Desserts:
Cranberry Bliss Bars {Starbucks Copycat Recipe} — The flavor in the Bliss Bars is very similar to the cookies, but they are more loaded and decadent! Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes!
Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Bliss Cake — This fast, easy, no-mixer cake is light, soft, fluffy, and moist. It’s springy and bouncey, with just enough density to give it some heft and dimension.
Cranberry Bliss Seven Layer Bars — A buttery graham cracker crust, topped with white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, walnuts, dried cranberries, coconut, and sweetened condensed milk!
Crustless Cranberry Pie —A FAST, super EASY, no-mixer dessert that’s perfect for holiday entertaining!! Somewhere in between pie, cake, and blondies is what you get with this FESTIVE recipe! Take advantage of those fresh cranberries!!
Cranberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars — The bars are soft, slightly chewy, and the hearty oats with big crumbles are a perfect contrast to the juicy cranberry filling.
Cranberry Orange Bread— The fresh cranberries in this cranberry orange bread contrast nicely with the sweet orange glaze, making it the perfect blend of sweet and tart!
Cranberry Chocolate Chip Blondies — The soft, buttery, caramely, brown sugary, blondie base is the perfect complement to the chewy, tart cranberries.
