An oven full of cookies has to be one of my favourite smells ever. And biting into a warm, soft, freshly baked cookie one of my favourite things ever.
White chocolate and cranberry is the perfect Christmas cookie. You can bake them as thick cookies, my personal favourite or, bigger, flatter ones (see recipe for how to make each) and the use of bread flour, which came about because I’d used up all our plain flour actually makes the cookies chewier in the middle which is just how I like them.
This recipe makes a lot of dough so it’s great if you have people coming over or if you want to give them as a gift and if not, make up the log/balls as you want to bake them and chuck them in the freezer ready to throw into the oven when you fancy one or when you have an unexpected Christmas visitor. Just add an extra 5 minutes to the cooking time if cooking from frozen.
Ingredients
250g butter, melted then cooled to room temperature
100g granulated sugar
250g light brown soft sugar
1 tbspn double cream
2 eggs
100g plain flour
200g strong white bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 baking powder
100g white chocolate chips
100g cranberries
Method
- Preheat the oven to 170° and pour the butter into a free-standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment. Add the sugars and and mix thoroughly on a medium speed until well incorporated then add the cream and mix again.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well in between each, be sure to scrape around the bowl too to make sure that there are bits stuck on the bottom or sides that haven’t been mixed in.
- Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder in two halves, mixing well in-between each and again, scrape the bowl.
- Stir the white chocolate and cranberries through so they’re evenly dispersed the either:
– Roll the dough into a long log shape and put in the freezer until hard (about an hour) then, cut 2cm discs from it for big cookies.
or
– Shape the dough into small balls with your hands then flatten them slightly before putting in the fridge or freezer until almost hard (about 20 minutes) then put the balls onto a baking tray, placing two on top of each other then pressing them down slightly (see below) to form smaller, thick cookies.
5. Bake in the centre of the oven for 10-15 minutes.
6. Cool slightly on a baking rack then tuck in while they’re still warm.
LG x
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