These delicious white chocolate cranberry cookies have the perfect blend of sweet white chocolate chips and tart dried cranberries with a hint of orange. They are an easy recipe to add to your baking list and look so beautiful on your holiday cookie tray.
Looking for more holiday dessert recipes? Be sure to try these Pecan Cookies, these cream cheese cookies and these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are all delicious cookies to make too!
Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Baking homemade cookie recipe is one of the most fun parts of the holiday season. I love to turn on Christmas music and make some memories every year. Made with simple ingredients, these cranberry cookies are perfectly soft and chewy and so festive!
They are perfect cookies to make for holiday parties and cookie exchanges but they are versatile enough to fit any occasion! Even simply as a treat to enjoy with your afternoon tea or coffee.
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Ingredients You’ll Need
Below is a list of the ingredients you’ll need to gather to make this recipe. Scroll all the way down for the full recipe card.
- All-Purpose Flour: To get soft cookies at just the right consistency, make sure to be precise with your flour measurements. For best results, use a kitchen scale or spoon flour into a measuring cup and level it off with the back of a knife. For gluten-free cookies, use a 1:1 gluten-free all-purpose flour. Bob’s Red Mill has one.
- Baking Soda:
- Salt: It enhances all the other flavors in the cookies
- Butter: I use unsalted butter for the best buttery flavor. If you use salted butter, leave out any additional salt.
- Sugar: Granulated sugar gives the cookies sweetness without darkening the dough.
- Fresh Orange Zest: You only need a small amount.
- Eggs: These bind everything together and add moisture.
- Pure Vanilla Extract: Adding vanilla to baked goods enhances the taste with the warm, aromatic flavor of vanilla. It’s a must!
- White Chocolate Chips: A great choice for Christmas cookies as red and white go together! Feel free to add extra white chocolate chips (about ½ cup more) if you want a sweeter cookie. Swap the white chocolate chips for dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, or butterscotch chips.
- Dried Cranberries: A classic ingredient for the holidays! Flecks of red add to the sweet and tart combo and make them look so pretty.
Variations To Try
1. Toss in some nuts like chopped walnuts or pecans for extra crunch.
2. Omit the orange zest if you prefer.
3. Swap the dried cranberries for dried cherries for a slightly different option.
4. You can swap some of the white sugar for brown sugar. If you do, the color will be a little darker as well.
How to Make these Cranberry Cookies
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350°F and line large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking sheets.
Step 2: In a medium bowl, add the three dry ingredients and mix together.
Step 3: In a large mixing bowl, add the room temperature butter, sugar and orange zest and blend with an electric mixer on medium-high speed. (or use the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Slowly add the eggs and vanilla extract to the butter mixture.
Step 4: Then gradually add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and blend on low speed between each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times. Be careful not to over-mix the batter or the cookies will be more dry.
Step 5: Add the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries and gently stir them in until evenly distributed throughout the cookie dough..
Step 6: Using a 1 ½-2 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop even-sized cookie dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.
Step 7: Bake the cookies for 12 minutes until the edges are barely golden brown.
Step 8 : Remove them from the oven and gently tap the cookie sheet on the counter. This will cause the center of the cookies to sink, giving them that nice wrinkled top. Then, place them back in the oven for a few more minutes. Be careful not to overbake the cookies. (See my tip below for perfectly round cookies)
Step 9: Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely .
Tips
- For perfectly rounded edges, use a large round cookie cutter and gently swirl it around the edge of the cookies after they are fully baked but still warm to shape them into perfect circles.
- Bring the butter to room temperature at least 30 minutes before you begin. You need the butter to be soft enough so that it creams easily with the eggs and sugar.
- The orange zest is optional. But I suggest keeping it in because it enhances the flavor so nicely.
- Measure the flour using the spoon and level method, as adding too much flour will result in dry, crumbly cookies.
- If you don’t have a cookie scoop, use a tablespoon with a big heaping scoop and form it into a ball as much as possible.
FAQ’s
Store any leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-4 days.
Can you freeze the cookies? Absolutely! Place them on a baking sheet that’s lined with wax or parchment paper and flash-freeze them. After the cookies are frozen solid, put them in a freezer-safe resealable bag and freeze them for up to three months.
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White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, softened to room temperature
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 ½ cups dried cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line large baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix together.2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon salt
- In a large mixing bowl, add the softened butter, granulated sugar, and orange zest and blend with an electric mixer on medium high until fluffy. (you can also use the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment).1 cup unsalted butter, 1 ½ cups granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest
- Add the eggs in one at a time, blending them in after each one is added.2 large eggs
- Then add the vanilla extract.2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients blending on low speed until the flour is just barely mixed in.
- Be very careful not to over-mix.
- Add the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries and gently stir them into the cookie batter.1 cup white chocolate chips, 1 ½ cups dried cranberries
- Use a 1 ½ or 2 tablespoon scoop, scoop equal sized cookie dough and plate them on the prepared baking sheets aat least 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 12 minutes, or until the edges are just barely golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and gently tap the baking sheet on the counter for the centers to sink. Then place them back in the oven for an additional 3 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the cookie sheets for 5 minutes then place them on a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclosure
Nutrition information is automatically calculated and should only be used as an approximation.
Rain
Can you use almond flour to make it low carb?
Sherri
Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as we’d like. Almond flour is moister because of higher fat content and doesn’t have the same binding qualities so they would probably turn out really flat. You could substitute 1/4 cup almond flour for the same amount the flour usually with no issues. 🙂
Nik
1.5 cups of sugar was way too much and ruined what otherwise would be great cookies. Next time I try 1/2 or 3/4 cup.
Rebecca
Cookies taste delicious but they spread so much and came out really flat. I refrigerated the dough before I baked the second batch and that didn’t seem to help. Not sure if I did something wrong.