White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

White chocolate cranberry cookies are soft, chewy, and chunky loaded with white chocolate and dried cranberries. A delicious festive cookie perfect for the holidays!

Soft and Chewy Holiday Cookie

After making my macadamia nut cookies the other day, I decided to adapt the recipe to make this delicious variation. I replaced the nuts with dried cranberries to give it a festive flare. The added color and sweet cranberry taste made these the perfect Christmas cookies!

You can never have too many quick and easy cookie recipes during the holidays, especially ones that look as good as they taste! The beautiful pop of color from the cranberries makes these festive-looking white chocolate chip and cranberry cookies a definite go-to for any cookie tray, gift, or cookie exchange.

This simple recipe has a basic foundation with a magical ingredient known as cornstarch. It helps yield the results we want when baking a soft cookie from scratch! The big chunks combined with that chewy texture really is a winning combination. You may be eating your weight in food at this point, but there is always room for a cookie. Or two! ;)

How to Make Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Prep. Leave your butter out at room temperature prior to beginning. That way it is nice and soft when you’re ready to start.
2. Cream. Start by creaming the butter and sugar together using an electric mixer. This process is made much easier using softened butter. It should become light and fluffy. Then, add in the eggs and vanilla and mix to combine.
3. Whisk. In a separate bowl, whisk the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder and slowly add this mixture to the sugar mixture. Mix well and fold in the chocolate chips, cranberries and optional macadamia nuts. The cornstarch and all-purpose flour as a combo act very much like cake flour. Which is why you get that lovely soft texture.
4. Refrigerate. Keep the prepared dough in the fridge for up to an hour. When ready, preheat the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
5. Scoop. Scoop cookie dough onto the baking sheet, using a cookie scoop or two tablespoons. This is the part where you decide whether you’re going to lick the spoon yourself or share it with your kids!
6. Bake. Bake until edges are golden brown but still soft in the middle.
7. Remove. Remove to cool for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to continue cooling. Serve warm with a cold glass of milk and enjoy!

Baking Tips and Variations

• Too cold. If you find your cookies aren’t spreading nicely, it could be because you’ve kept the dough in the fridge for too long. An hour is maximum, however, 15 minutes should suffice. The colder the dough, the harder it is to spread. If using frozen dough, make sure to bring it back to a warmer temperature before baking.
• Too warm. Although there is such a thing as too cold, it’s important to remember there is such a thing as too warm! You want the butter chilled so it doesn’t overspread too quickly. The longer it takes for the butter to melt into the cookie, the more evenly it spreads. So, in a nutshell…not too warm, not too cold.
• Oats. Add in old fashioned oats to make the texture a bit chewier like I did with this oatmeal cranberry cookie recipe.
• Raisins. If cranberries aren’t your thing, try raisins instead. I mean, if you swap out the white chocolate chips for milk chocolate chips, you’ll have yourself an everyday chocolate chip raisin cookie. Nothing wrong with that!
• A science. Baking, as we know, uses really precise measurements. Be sure to level your flour in the measuring cup using the straight edge of a knife to keep it level.
• Too sweet? White chocolate is quite sweet. That plus the added sugar, this beautifully indulgent cookie is a bit on the sweeter side. If you find so, you can cut the sugar and/or cut the amount of white chocolate you’re using.

How Do I Store Them?

Enjoy these cookies for the next 3 days by keeping any leftovers in an airtight container.  If you’ve made a bigger batch and want to freeze some, they will keep for 3 months in a freezer-friendly airtight container. Thaw at room temperature for a few hours before enjoying.

Other Holiday Cookie Recipes

HUNGRY FOR MORE? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for all the newest recipes!