Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Well, it’s been another busy and fun filled week in my life, made even better by the fact that it was my birthday on Wednesday! All very exciting, for obvious reasons, but made even more so by travelling home to my parents’ house to spend it there. It was only the second time I’ve visited since March so it was really fun to see all the family and finally get some baked goods that I didn’t bake myself! I broke with tradition this year and requested my sisters make me a birthday trifle rather than cake. I did this largely because I have cake reasonably frequently doing this blog and because I ultimately love trifle! And this wasn’t just some ordinary trifle, it was a raspberry and white chocolate trifle....three words; white chocolate custard. Yum. So that was delicious and I ate close to my own weight in it seeing as I think that’s what you’re supposed to do on your own birthday.

Now though I’m back home and back in the kitchen with some white chocolate and cranberry cookies. If I’m honest, with all the fun and games of the past week I had a moment of...’oh yeah, it’s Friday tomorrow’ and had no idea what to make. So I started flicking through my recipe books and came across several cookie recipes and a white chocolate and cranberry cookie recipe in particular. Up to this point, I’ve avoided using a cookie recipe for Treat Friday largely because it’s a bit boring and most people have a favourite cookie recipe they use anyway. Well obviously I’ve given in, but I’ve tried to make it a bit more fun with some cranberries thrown in rather than just plain old chocolate. I did want to put macadamia nuts in too to make them fancier, unfortunately the supermarket didn’t have any – how uncooperative!

These cookies are very nice regardless and also very easy. The quantities in this recipe made 25 smallish cookies for me but you can make them as large as you want to! So enjoy your treat Friday, I unfortunately won’t be partaking this week due to the vast quantities of treats (trifle) I’ve already had this week. Roll on next Friday!

Some final tips before you get started:

• To keep these cookies nice and round, briefly roll each piece of dough into a ball before you place it on your baking sheet. They’ll cook down to an (almost) perfectly round shape.
• Make sure each piece of cookie dough is a couple of inches away from those around it. This dough will spread and if not they’ll cook together, you’ll have to cut them apart and you end up with square cookies. The horror!
• For me, 12 minutes is the perfect baking time when making the smallish versions of these cookies. The dough balls I made were about the size of a walnut and 12 minutes in the oven left them slightly crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. If you prefer yours softer, I’d have a go at cooking them for 10 minutes. If you like them crunchier, I’d leave them in for 15 minutes – just make sure they don’t burn!

Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

140g Unsalted Butter (softened)

80g Caster Sugar

80g Soft Light Brown Sugar

1 Egg

½ tsp. Vanilla Extract

200g Plain Flour

½ tsp. Salt

¼ tsp. Ground Cinnamon

½ tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda

100g Dried Cranberries

100g White Chocolate Chips

2 x Baking Sheets

1)      Preheat the oven to 170◦C, line the baking sheets with greaseproof paper. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and both of the sugars until light and fluffy. Gradually add the egg and the vanilla extract, stirring between each addition until well combined.

2)      Sift the plain flour, salt, ground cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda into the bowl and stir until just combined. Add the dried cranberries and white chocolate chips, stir until evenly distributed.

3)      Take heaped teaspoons of dough and roll into balls, place onto the prepared baking sheets leaving a couple of inches between each ball of dough. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes.

4)      When slightly golden brown, remove from the oven and leave to cool on the sheets. Enjoy!