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These slice and bake chocolate orange cranberry cookies combine my favorite winter flavors along with shortbread dough. Soft, buttery, chewy and chocolatey.
Post updated on Dec.9th, 2017.
They might not be the prettiest holiday cookies out there, but they taste amazing!
These slice and bake cookies could be made in no time and you can not go wrong with them.
This is just another alternative if you are looking for cookies that combine some great winter flavors orange and cranberry. Really nice for Christmas, but I can eat them any time.
I wanted to post this recipe before the holidays, for those of you, who will not have time to bake, frost and decorate holiday cookies, but still want to make some.
These Slice And Bake Chocolate Orange Cranberry Cookies are just perfect! You mix up the dough, roll it into a log, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days.
Since this is one of my all time favorite Christmas cookie recipes, I decided to try something fun this year – Cookie Mix In A Jar! Easy to put together, festive and great for a holiday gift. I combined the sugar, flour, salt corn starch, chocolate chips and cranberries for this recipe in a 32 oz Kerr Jar. All you need to do is add butter, egg yolks, vanilla and orange zest to the cookie mix.
When ready to bake the cookies, just take the dough out of the fridge, slice and bake them. It is that easy! Even your kids could make these (depends on how old they are ).
The cookies are simple, but don’t judge them by the way they look. The dough could also be made in advance and frozen for up to 1 month.
This way you can ensure that you’ve started making the cookies and just bake them whenever you need them for a party of just for your family.
No cookie cutters are used to prepare these cookies, but you can totally roll the dough out and cut cookies with various shapes (if you have the time).
I like making my slice and bake cookies with chocolate, orange zest and dried cranberries. Feel free to adjust to your taste. Dried apricots or raisins will be a nice substitute to the recipe. If you’d like, you can swap 1/2 cup of flour in this recipe with ground nuts like -pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts or pistachios.
I hope you like them!
Slice And Bake Chocolate Orange Cranberry Cookies
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks / 8oz /230 gr) softened butter
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 2 egg yolks at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- zest from 2 large oranges
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips, (mini would be great)
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment beat butter for 2 minutes until fluffy.
- Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth.
- Beat in egg yolks one by one and beat until incorporated.
- Add orange zest, cranberries and chocolate chips.
- In a bowl combine flour, salt and cornstarch.
- Add flout mixture to the bowl of the stand mixer and beat on low until flour is absorbed.
- Transfer dough to a lightly floured working surface, form a ball and divide in half. If you could at this time roll each part into a 1 inch thick log. (If dough appears too sticky and you can’t work with it, refrigerate for 30 minutes and then roll into logs.) Wrap each log with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Baking the cookies:
- Preheat oven to 350 F (177 C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Take cookie dough out of the fridge. Using a sharp knife, slice logs into cookies about 1/3 inch thick.
- Transfer cookies to baking sheets, leaving at least 1 inch between them.
- Bake cookies for 12-14 minutes, until edges are set and start to turn golden. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool to room temperature.
Notes
Unbaked cookie dough logs could be frozen for up to 3 months.
Recipe adapted form SmittenKitchen.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Cookie Mix In A Jar Option – DOWNLOAD free printable tags with the recipe HERE
Cookie Mix In A Jar Option
Ingredients
Cookie Mix In A Jar:
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Add In:
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 egg yolks, large
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp orange zest
Instructions
- In a bowl beat together butter, egg yolks and vanilla for 2 minutes. Add orange zest. Beat to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add in the contents of the jar. Beat for 2 minutes, until incorporated.
- Divide dough into 2 equal parts and form 2 logs, 1-inch in diameter. Wrap with plastic and refrigerate for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350F.Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice logs into cookies 1/3-inch thick
- Transfer to the baking sheets and bake for 12-14 minutes until golden. Cool for 2 min on the baking sheet and remove.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This is stunning Mira. Exactly what I have come to know you for. And a fantastic flavour combo. I’m on a cranberry kick at the moment because I have so much dried cranberry in stock! I’ll have to give this a go! 🙂
Thanks a lot Nagi! I hope you like these! I love dried cranberries 🙂
Not pretty? Are you kidding? These are super gorgeous! And I love the flavors, too!
Thanks Mir!
This is such a fantastic idea to make slice and bake cookies, Mira! I’ve never even thought of that! This is so perfect for the holidays since you can make the dough ahead of time and then freeze. And I love the flavor combinations, too! Such a great idea to combine the chocolate with the fruits. Pinned!
Thanks for pinning Gayle!
You want to know the funniest thing…before I read your first sentence, and upon seeing the first photo, I thought to myself…these are so pretty! hahaha! So, what this means is that you make everything look pretty! And they sound equally delicious!! Pinned!
Thanks Annie, actually after eating 10 of them, I now think they are “pretty ” 🙂
These look so buttery and yummy Mira. Orange and cranberries must taste awesome together! and they look so pretty! Pinned.
Thanks Manali!
Chocolate and cranberries, yum. I love that they’re slice and bake, great recipe.
Thanks Janette!
I think those cookies are really pretty! And that flavour combination – perfection! Cranberry, orange and chocolate are so good together, and in a shortbread cookie would be absolutely divine!
I’m glad you like these Stacey!
Mira, it’s great that you can prepare this dough and freeze it for later. And I actually don’t think these look ugly at all! I like that slightly irregular shape. It’s nicely rustic! I also LOVE your choice of ingredients. Orange and cranberries are perfect together at Christmas … and no one can argue with the chocolate!
I’m happy to hear you like these Helen and yeah, they are extremely delicious! And it is nice you can freeze the dough, because it usually gets a little hectic before Christmas 🙂
Mira, I think cookies look great! little rustic and packed with festive flavors of cranberries and chocolate! hard to miss!
Glad you like these Savita!
Awesome recipe- I love the flavors you combined! And I love the look to them, very festive!
Thanks Sonali!!!