White Chocolate & Cranberry Christmas Cookies
Prep Time:15 mins, Cook Time: 10 mins, Total Time: 25 mins
December 8, 2012
I’ve stopped buying biscuits. Two reasons. The cheaper ones have too many nasties in there. And secondly, most crucially, I have zero willpower. If they’re there to be eaten I’ll scoff them, usually way too many in any one single tea dunking session. Homemade cookies are the perfect answer. Okay, they’re still full of sugars, butter and refined flour BUT there’s no additives or bad fats. AND you can make the dough in bulk and stuff them in the fridge of freezer for when the fancy takes you. Or guests turn up. Or the kids demand biscuits. And even I, monster biscuit muncher that I am, rarely go as far as to take dough out of the freezer and bake just to satisfy a sudden craving. I say rarely, as it has happened, and let’s face it there ARE those occasions!
The dough’s frighteningly quick and easy to make and fun to do with kids, just wait for them to try raw cookie dough. ‘Tis good, too good. And only takes about 10 minutes to transform from a sticky mess into some of the most delicious warm and ready to eat cookies ever. Oh so naughty but oh so nice.
Hmm, admittedly not an enormous amount of goodness going on here, but there are Cranberries! And it’s nearly christmas.
Great For:
Toddlers, Pre-Schoolers, Big Kids, Grown Ups, Elevensies, Naughty Lunchboxes, After School, Baking with Kids, Christmas, Making Ahead, Freezing
Notes:
Makes 30 large cookies, or three sticks of dough.
The dough can be stored in the fridge for several days or the freezer for a few months (as if it’ll last months’ plural!)
Special Equipment:
Two mixing bowls, a large baking tray lined with baking paper
White Chocolate & Cranberry Christmas Cookies
Ingredients Prep Time:15 mins, Cook Time: 10 mins, Total Time: 25 mins
225g butter, very soft
175g light muscovado sugar
175g golden caster sugar
2 medium free range eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
350g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
200g white chocolate, chopped into small chunks
150g dried cranberries
1) Beat the butter until very soft (which is much easier to do if it’s been left to warm up out of the fridge for a while). Then beat in the sugars, followed by the eggs and the vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and creamy. Employ any spare children to do this bit for you!
2) In another bowl combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Slowly add the dry mix to the wet until fully combined. Stir in the chocolate and cranberries. That really is all there is to it!.
3) Divide the mixture into three. Dollop each third onto a length of cling film. Using the cling film to hold the mixture together (it’s very soft and almost unworkable with bare hands) form into a long sausage shape, about 20 cm long and 5 cm wide. Twirl the ends of the cling film to secure into shape and pop into the fridge to firm up. Repeat with the other two thirds.
4) It’s good to use after about 30 minutes of firming up time. The dough will keep like this for several days in the fridge or much longer in a freezer.
5) When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 190º/170ºfan/Gas 5. When it’s up to temperature, remove a sausage of dough from the fridge or freezer. Cut the sausage dough into 1.5 cm rounds, and simply place the rounds as they are, but very spread out, on a large baking sheet lined with baking parchment. They’ll melt down into a flat cookie shape all by themselves, my kids love to watch this.
6) Pop in the oven for 9 to 11 minutes. They’re ready when almost firm in the middle and light golden brown. Remove from the tray immediately and cool a little on a rack before eating. They’re particularly lovely warm.
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I’ve stopped buying biscuits - they just get eaten and then there are complaints because there are no bicuits left… But I like your idea of having some cookie dough in the fridge ready to bake - I’ll try your recipe and see how long the cookies last. I’m guessing it won’t be long if they taste as good as they look!
Thanks Sarah, I can guarantee you they won’t last long. Five minutes is about the longest in our house!
A very happy husband I’ve no doubt with such delicious cookies about! Thank you for entering these into TTT!
Thank you! He is such a biscuit fiend!
Ha! it sounds like we live with similar husbands! Mine is a complete biscuit fiend too. White chocolate and cranberry is a combination that’s been happening in our kitchen this weekend, it’s very Christmassy isn’t it!
White choccie and cranberries are a match made in heaven. I saw your latest blog with them in too, the fudge looks positively dreamy!
Love, love, love these! Brunch, dinner, midnight snack! And a wonderfully festive entry to December’s Breakfast Club - thanks so much for taking part 🙂
Thanks Vanesther. Looking forward to entering the Breakfast Club regularly now, though possibly with slightly healthier starts to the day than these ever so naughty cookies!
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Wow - these look like a very decadent breakfast! But also delicious with a cuppa I would have thought - since white chocolate and cranberry is such a yummy combination!
Thank you! Absolutely delicious with absolutely anything really!