White chocolate cranberry cookies recipe

Sweet white chocolate cookies jewelled with dried cranberries.

These chunky white chocolate cranberry cookies are a brilliant treat to bake up for the family. The tartness of the cranberries is the perfect contrast to the sweetness of the chocolate. Using cranberries can feel quite festive, but since these are dried ones, you can make them any time of year. These make a great homemade present, too. The recipe makes 10 but you can bag them at four or five a time, so you'll have enough for two gifts. Plus there's one or two for the chef to 'trial'. You could even do a mix of two flavours with our white chocolate chip cookies (opens in new tab), which have a zesty hit of orange as well.

Ingredients

• 135g (5oz) unsalted butter
• 80g (3oz) caster sugar
• 80g (3oz) soft light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla essence
• 190g (7oz) plain flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g (3½oz) dried cranberries
• 60g (2oz) white chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas mark 3, and line two baking sheets with baking parchment.
2. Using a hand-held electric whisk or a freestanding electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and both types of sugar, then break in the egg, add the vanilla essence and mix well together.
3. Sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda, then add to the creamed mixture in two batches, mixing thoroughly in the mixer or by hand until a dough forms. Lastly stir in the cranberries and chocolate chips.
4. Break off pieces of the dough (about 2 tbsp in size), roll them into balls and place on the prepared baking sheets. Allow five or six cookies per tray, making sure to space them apart from each other (by about 7-8cm/3in) as they will spread during cooking.
5. Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cookies are a light golden on top. Leave on the sheets for about 10 minutes to cool and set before transferring to a wire rack.

Top tip for making white chocolate cranberry cookies:

If it's Christmas time and you have fresh cranberries in the house, you can use these instead of dried cranberries in this recipe. You'll need about 150g of them. Chop them in half and toss them in a tablespoon of flour before you mix them in. It changes the taste of the biscuits, because dried cranberries are sweeter, but we rather like the lighter, fruitier taste you get from them.

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