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.
Made these as a pre-Thanksgiving treat for my coworkers. Everyone said they had never had cranberry cookies before but that they were amazing!
I only made two substitutions: using only all-purpose flour and egg beaters instead of real eggs.
Great recipe that I would definitely make again!
Glad these came out great even using egg beaters! I’m impressed! And so glad everyone loved the cookies!
Just a baking science question: What is the purpose of the cream/milk in this cookie? If it’s to add extra liquid to compensate for the extra flour . . . well, why the extra flour then?
The purpose of the cream is to make the cookies taste CREAMY.
I made these cookies for my neighbors for the holidays and they are awesome! I live down south in a very humid climate and this is the first batch of cookies that were nice and fat, exactly as I hoped! I assume that the difference is the bread flour… Would you recommend doing a 1:1 ratio using bread flour in your sprinkle sugar cookies? I have made those several times and while they are fatter than others I make they are not as fat as I would like. What are your thoughts? I am in love with your recipes, thank you!
Bread flour has a higher protein content than AP by about 1-2%, thus more gluten, thus anything made with bread flour WILL rise higher and be thicker and puffier. Given your climate and what you know to be true w/ your results, I think that bread flour cannot hurt! Tinker around with the ratios in whatever way you think works best and play it by ear. Glad to hear you love these & my recipes!
I made these last week, and they lasted until right about this morning before getting too chewy/stale (of course there was only one left this morning to be eaten, so who really knows). This really is a wonderful mixture! My parents were very dubious, but tried them and loved them immediately. The taste reminds me of yogurt-covered raisins, in a way.
I cooked them longer than you recommended, because of personal taste- I know it’s almost sacrilege, but I prefer my cookies on the crunchy side, rather than soft and chewy. I also fooled around with how I rolled them and how big they were. I loved them, and will definitely make again!
the dough base flavor IS very yogurt-covered raisins, yes! I totally can get that…would have never said that but now that you do, yes! I think it’s the little bit of cream in the dough that does that and then with the white choc rather than yogurt and cranberries rather than raisins. Glad to know that even (over)baking them until crunchy and they still lasted a week+ for you! Wow, that’s awesome. Thanks for LMK you made them!
Was looking for a soft chewy cookie recipe that included these exact ingredients. Pleasantly surprised by how well they turned out. Delicious and I would definitely bake them again! I loved it; great job!
I am so glad to hear you were pleasantly surprised with the results; that’s good! I do love these cookies and this is a cookie that I have people write in and rave about and those who like these, REALLY like these. I am glad to hear you had success!
These are THE best cookies I’ve ever made in my entire life!!! Which is saying
A lot considering I bake something every single day with my kids and I’ve tried
Countless cookie doughs. This will be my go to base for all other cookies from now
On. Thk you so much. That 2 T of cream makes all the difference!
Wow, this is such high praise! If you like these, also check out these, very similar https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2013/01/maraschino-cherry-white-chocolate-cookies.html and I described why I used that base and why I love it so!
I absolutely adore the dough base, too. It’s a bit ‘delicate’ for like for a really chunky/hearty choc chip cookie with nuts in it, and I wouldn’t use it for that. But for so many other cookies, I love the dough base, and can’t get enough of it. The fact that you bake every day, too, speaks volumes. Thank you so much for the comment!
We’re truly grateful for these, they’re incredibly delicious every time we make them!
I made these for my spread of Christmas cookies for my family. They were an absolute hit! Thank you so much and keep up the delicious and beautiful baking!
xoxo
I am so glad they were an absolute hit! Thanks for making them & taking the time to come back and LMK – I appreciate it! :)
I baked these cookies for our Christmas gathering and they were a hit. I had one relative say he thought they were divine and that he would pay money for these cookies. Thanks for the great recipe!! I will definitely be baking these cookies again.
You just made my day! Thanks for the sweet comment and taking the time to both make these & come back and LMK they were so popular. I am honored your relative would pay money for these – now that’s super high praise and thank you! :)
Hey Averie! I made these yesterday! Well not exactly those..ya know..there is no such thing here as white choc-chips, breadflour, and unsweetned cramberries, and I made them wholewheat and a third of the sugar you raccommend, but still..I cut white chocolate into pieces and took sweetened cramberries, and made everyone happy! Thank you for the idea!! Next time (tomorrow?) I’ll add oats too!
So happy to hear you made a version of these based on what you have in your area and that they made everyone happy – thanks for the report back and glad you all liked them!