My Favorite Crunchy Cranberry Butter Cookies

Today is the fourth day of Chinese New Year and a working day for me. I don't mind it at all that I did not take any extra days off.

I went on a marathon, well, almost marathon cookie baking session that saw me baking ten batches (because my oven is small) of cookies a day (I baked over two days). That took me from morning till mid afternoon.

I am not the adventurous sort and I stuck to my firm favorites (and easy bakes) and today I want to share the recipe for my favorite cranberry butter cookies.

These cookies are uncomplicated and yet so good - buttery and tasty, crunchy and addictive. It's my personal favorite and I have tweaked the old recipe and taken the effort to ensure that each cookie contains at least two cranberries hah..hah...

You know how it is, when you fold the cranberries (or stuff like chocolate chips) into the batter, it is not possible to get an even distribution of the goodies in the dough. Some pieces might have only one cranberry, others may have more or even no cranberries at all.

So. When I pinched the cookie dough to form little balls I manually ensured that each dough ball contained two or three cranberries (depending on the size of the cranberries, some are big and some tiny). That was tedious but ultimately worth it.

Then I made sure that the cranberries that peeked out from the dough face upwards so that when I press the dough, the cranberries were visible. How OCD is that?

That's basically for presentation purpose since these are Chinese New Year cookies or else, I wouldn't bother.

Of course I was not successful in making sure that all the pieces had visible cranberries. But it was good enough. 

When buying dried cranberries, I prefer the one with 50% reduced sugar.

I accidentally bought one packet which was blueberry flavored and as much as I love blueberries, cranberries should taste like cranberries. I found that one way too sweet and the blueberry smell (though not unpleasant) was quite strong.

I would say that baking great tasting cookies pretty much depends on the quality of the ingredients - such as good quality butter, natural vanilla extract and fresh ingredients. 

Besides crushed cornflakes, I added a cup of Nestum cereal into the dough as I feel that Nestum brings a special something to cookies. 

Here's the recipe and I hope that you enjoy these cookies as much as I do.

Crunchy Cranberry Butter Cookies

Recipe source : Adapted from many recipes

Ingredients :

- 250g self-raising flour

- 250g butter

- 150g caster sugar 

- 1 egg

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 2 cups finely crushed cornflakes (I used food processor to crush)

- 1 cup Nestum cereal 

- 130g dried cranberries (I use 50% reduced sugar)

Method :

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2. Add vanilla extract and egg and continue to beat until well incorporated.

3. Add flour in two additions and fold the flour into the mixture.

4. Add crushed cornflakes, Nestum and dried cranberries and mix to form a dough 

5. Pinch a small amount dough and roll into little balls, the size of a marble and place dough ball onto a lined baking tray. Place dough balls about an inch apart from each other.

6. Using a fork, press gently to flatten the dough.

7. Bake at 160C for 15-16 minutes, turning at half time, until cookies are golden brown.

8. Remove baking tray from the oven to cool for about 5 minutes and transfer cookies onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

9. Store cookies in airtight containers.

Notes if you are OCD like me :

1. When pinching the dough, ensure that each dough ball contains at least 2 cranberries (unless if it is a big ass cranberry, one will do).

2. Place the dough ball with exposed cranberries facing up so that when pressed, the cranberries are visible.

3. The first batch is baked for 15 minutes while batch two onward are 14 minutes as the oven is very hot by then (your oven may be different, so please adjust).