White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies — Bursting with texture and each bite is loaded with tart, chewy cranberries and sweet white chocolate! The perfect fall or holiday cookie recipe!
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!
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Cranberry and White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons cream or milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup bread flour, see notes below
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1 cup 8 ounces white chocolate chips
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the sugars and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg, cream, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flours, baking soda, salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Add the cranberries, white chocolate chips, and beat momentarily with the mixer until combined or fold in by hand. Transfer dough to an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, up to 5 days.
- Preheat oven to 350°F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat, parchment, or spray with cooking spray.
- Using a 2-ounce cookie scoop, form heaping mounds weighing 2 1/4-ounces each (weighed on a scale, which is approximately a scant 1/4-cup measure) and place them on the baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until pale golden and edges have just set, even if slightly undercooked in the center, as cookies will firm up as they cool (The cookies shown in the photos were baked for 9 minutes and have chewy edges with soft pillowy centers. For crunchier cookies, extend baking time by 1 to 2 minutes).
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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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!
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.
I made these and love the bread and all purpose flour combination. I soaked the craisians in hot water for 15 minutes then drained, just to soften them. The Cookies turned out so nice and soft and flavorful. I ground just a tad of sea salt on the cookies before baking and it added just a bit more flavor. I’d make again.
Thanks for the 5 star review, Linnae, and I am glad they turned out great for you and that you’d make them again! I love a bit of sea salt as well on most cookies.
I’d love to make these but as a bar cookie (I’ve got 4 kids ages 5 and under so bars would just be easier for me to pull off lol). Any advice on cook time and temperature if I were to make that way instead?
https://www.averiecooks.com/2015/11/cranberry-bliss-seven-layer-bars.html
https://www.averiecooks.com/2014/11/cranberry-chocolate-chip-blondies.html
Try either of those. The second one you can easily swap out with white choc chips and it will be very close to this cookie recipe.
Made this today – they turned out amazing! (Didn’t exactly measure the scoops – so they needed to be in the oven around 15 minutes). Another successful recipe from Averiecooks.
Awesome! Glad it was another successful averiecooks recipe!
These were tasty! I doubled the recipe since you say it only makes 16 cookies. I ended up with 63 cookies. As tasty as they were, I did not need that many cookies! The only thing I did differently is add about half a cup of pistachios. I used a 3/4oz cookie scoop. I will definitely make them again, but one batch at a time is more than enough. Thanks for the recipe! :)
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad you enjoyed it! My scoop that I used for these is a 2-tablespoon scoop. I am not sure how that translates to ounces but I am thinking that 1-ounce scoop is about 1 tablespoon of dough, thus you were using less than 1 tablespoon of dough per cookie and I use a solid 2 tbsp per cookie. And then with the double batch, that makes sense. Clearly I make bigger cookies than you :) You could have always frozen some of the dough for up to 4 months or freeze the cookies if you don’t need them all now.
A 3/4oz scoop is apparently 1 and 2/3rds tablespoons, so only a teaspoon off what you use. Maybe I put in extra cranberries or something (I had a toddler “helper”). I dunno. I will have to make them again, without my little helper, and see how many I end up with. Having extra cookies wasn’t a big deal, really. I was just surprised at how many I got out of the recipe. Thanks again for a great recipe. :)
Maybe yes your helper was adding a few extra goodies :) And also my 2 tbsp mounds are definitely more on the heaping 2 tbsp side of things. Glad you love the cookies!
Hi Averie! so i followed the recipe exactly. Left it in the fridge overnight. This morning i placed them on a well greased cookie pan. I baked them at 350. After 6-7 minutes i took them out. the bottoms were black and the inside was mushy… i let them cool a bit and when tried to remove them from the pan, they stuck to the pan and fell apart… I am so disappointed :( i had such a craving for these cookies. Any idea why this happened to me?
It sounds like your oven is running VERY hot, much hotter than 350. Anytime a cookie would be black on the bottom but mushy in the middle, that’s a sign that your oven is too hot for the cookie. I also don’t recommend baking with Silpats. See this post for all my cookie baking success tips! https://www.averiecooks.com/the-best-soft-and-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies/
I made these this weekend for Thanksgiving and they are fabulous! I followed your directions exactly and they look like your picture. So yummy and soft/chewy. I wanted to skip refrigerating dough because I was short on time, but I think the scoop and cold dough was key to turning out right. Glad I was patient and followed your directions :)
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Hi, my name is Jen and I’m a carbaholic. It’s been thirty seconds since my last cookie….ok so I realized I have a problem when my most visited website is yours, and my grandpa (visiting for a while) bought two Costco packs of butter…on top of having one in the freezer still. Anyway. These cookies are amazing. For the last month they have been the most requested cookie and I’ve made them at least a dozen times. It started out with one of those ginormous bags of long overdue Craisins needing some immediate use. I do have to slightly dehydrated my cranberries because they really are that old, but they taste just amazing. My aunt tried one and turned to me..”this is what makes life with living”. agreed. My grandma, who still maintains she hates cranberries and white chocolate disappeared with the full tray returning with only the cookies left… mighty suspicious of you ask me. Love your recipes so much. Keep up the awesome work.
this is what makes life with living = AMEN!!! to cookies!! :)
So glad these are on repeated rotation with you, at least a dozen times, and love that you have a giant stash of Craisins as well as all that butter :) I adore these cookies as well and have wanted to re-do the photos because I don’t think they convey at all how amazing these cookies taste and I am so glad you agree!!
Averie, I’ve made these every year since you posted the recipe. It’s now our family tradition. My husband, the chocolate king, LOVES these more than chocolate chip cookies, brownies, anything else I bake. That says a lot.
They really are so good. Your photos are great but maybe a redo and post again would help people realize what they are missing out on. Especially since you now have 2 printed cookbooks! You go girl!
I still follow the exact original recipe. Bread flour and all. It just works. :)
I wrote that to someone else recently with these cookies – they are amazing and the photos don’t sell them and next holiday season, I think a re-shoot is in order :)
Glad these are your faves and that you make them annually AND that your husband prefers these to almost anything else – that’s amazing and thanks for sharing! Merry Christmas!
Hi Averie, These look so amazing! I just went out and purchased all the ingredients to make them, andI probably should have asked this before hand. I don’t have a standing mixer, Is that an absolute necessity for making these cookies?
You can use a handheld electric mixer rather than a stand; and I supposed you could cream the ingredients totally by hand if you have some elbow grease to spare :)