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I love these cookies so much, with the dried cranberries and orange zest in the dough! They taste delicious and I knew that they would be the perfect dough for cookie cutters. The dough needs to chill for at least an hour before rolling it out and cutting, but it could also be made a day or two in advance and stored in the fridge.
I used my Cranberry Orange Christmas cookie recipe, but made a few slight changes.
To make this dough better suited for cutting out with cookie cutters, I put the dried cranberries into the food processor and pulsed several times until they were pretty small. When I made these cookies at Christmas, I just roughly chopped the dried cranberries with a knife. I wanted the cranberry pieces smaller this time so they didn’t hang over the edges when cutting the cookies out. At Christmas I simply rolled the cookies into balls, so the size of the dried cranberry pieces didn’t make a difference.
On a lightly floured pastry board, I rolled the chilled dough out to about 1/4 inch thick before cutting. I floured the cookie cutters so they wouldn’t stick.
I used three different sizes of heart-shaped cookie cutters so that I would have a variety of cookie sizes. I cut as many as I could, then gathered the scraps, rolled the dough to 1/4 inch thick again, and cut more. I repeated this process until I had used all of the dough. If you find that the dough is getting sticky, you can refrigerate it to chill it again between cutting.
These cookies won’t spread too much as long as the dough doesn’t get too warm while you’re working with it. It’s ok to place them relatively close together on your parchment-lined baking sheet. I had a bowl with a little bit of granulated sugar in it and dipped both sides of every cookie before putting them onto the baking sheet. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees F on the center rack for 13 minutes.
These cookies really don’t brown significantly, so you’re not looking for a golden color to indicate that they’re done. They really just need about 15 minutes and they will be just slightly darker when they’re done. They can be left as-is, or frosted after they cool for a bit.
I made a glaze for these cookies at Christmas, but I wanted it to be a thicker frosting for the hearts. I increased the powdered sugar in the recipe below and added 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract. So it’s 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, 1 oz freshly squeezed orange juice, 1 tbsp of melted unsalted butter and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, mixed well with a whisk until smooth. I dipped the top side of each cookie into the frosting and used a spatula to smooth the edges, then arranged the cookies on a wooden serving board. I decided to add a few heart-shaped sprinkles to some. The frosting does set, so if you’re adding sprinkles, you need to add them as you frost, or else the frosting will harden and the sprinkles won’t stick.
I hope that you try these and enjoy them! It made about 32 cookies, in varying sizes. They store well in an air-tight container on the counter for a few days! Here is my instagram post about them.
Simple Cranberry Orange Two-Bite Christmas Cookies
These simple little cookies will be your new favorite! The dried cranberries and orange zest in the dough make them so flavorful and the freshly squeezed orange juice glaze on top adds a bit of sweetness that you won’t be able to resist!
10
servings40
minutes15
minutes288
kcal1
hour1
hour55
minutesKeep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
- Cookies:
2 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt – see note
2 tsp orange zest – see note
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 whole egg at room temperature
1/2 c roughly chopped dried cranberries – see note
- Other:
1 tbsp all purpose flour for your work surface/hands
- Glaze:
1 c powdered (confectioners) sugar
1 oz freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tbsp unsalted butter – melted
Directions
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine flour (I like to weigh it to 240 g on a kitchen scale), baking powder and salt, mix with a whisk.
- Using a microplane, zest one orange into your dry ingredients and then mix with a whisk.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl if you want to use a hand mixer instead), add softened butter and granulated sugar. Cream these together with the paddle attachment for several minutes until they are well combined.
- Add egg and vanilla extract and mix until smooth, then slowly add the dry ingredients, one large spoonful at a time with the mixer on low. Once the dry ingredients are incorporated, you can change the speed to medium and mix for another two minutes.
- Add dried cranberries and mix on low just until the cranberries are evenly distributed.
- Your dough should not be particularly sticky, so flour a work surface with about 1 tbsp of all purpose flour and form your dough into a circle and then flatten it into a disc. Wrap your disc and refrigerate it for an hour. I actually put my disc on the table outside my kitchen door if I’m making these in the winter. It’s important to chill the dough before forming your cookies, or they will end up spreading while baking and won’t maintain their spherical shape.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place your rack in the center position. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Form your dough into 20 roughly equal sized balls. I used a tablespoon and pressed it into my dough disc and this worked out perfectly for 20 cookies. Space the balls evenly out on the baking sheet, I had five rows of four. If you’d prefer to use cookie cutters for this dough, check out this post for instructions.
- Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees F. The finished cookies should be slightly golden, with a golden brown bottom and you will be able to see some cracks forming on the top surface.
- While the cookies bake, prepare your glaze,
- In a small mixing bowl, add powdered sugar, orange juice and melted butter. Stir well until smooth and combined. If your powdered sugar isn’t super fresh, humidity can cause it to have some harder chunks of sugar. If this is the case, use a sifter first so that your glaze will end up smooth. Your glaze should look like this:
- Once cookies have cooled off (about 15 minutes or so), you can glaze them. I poured the glaze on, but dipping them would be a good idea too!
- If serving these right away, arrange them on a platter with sliced oranges if you want to! You can also store them in an airtight container for several days.
Equipment
Wooden Pastry BoardShop on Williams Sonoma
Rimmed Baking SheetShop on Williams Sonoma
Heart CuttersShop on Williams Sonoma
Geometry House TowelsSave with SarahR15
Kitchenaid 7-quart Stand MixerShop on Amazon
Pyrex Glass Mixing BowlsSave with SARAHTREED
Measuring Cups and SpoonsShop at Williams Sonoma
GIR WhiskShop on Amazon
Unbleached Parchment PaperShop on Amazon
Recipe Video
Notes
- I like to use pink Himalayan sea salt for baking and I keep in on hand, but regular iodized salt works for this too, You don’t need to buy special salt.
- I zested one orange for this and it seemed to be about 2-3 tsp of orange zest. Zesting one orange should be fine and I wouldn’t worry about the actual measurement.
- I measured out 1/2 cup of dried cranberries and then put them on a cutting board and gave them a rough chop. I wanted them to be in smaller pieces. Using a food processor would likely make them stick together.
- I used freshly squeezed oj from the orange that I had zested, I measured out an ounce and I squeezed half of the orange.
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