These Orange Cranberry Cookies are delightful, bright, and packed full of flavor. Simple, and made in 30 minutes, these picture perfect cookies are sure to be a hit for any occasion. Get ready for a beautiful aroma to fill your kitchen when you make these cookies.
Reasons You’ll Love This Recipe
Fruit Cookies – Step aside chocolate chip, a new flavor combination is entering the building.
Easy To Make – This recipe only needs 8 ingredients and 30 minutes of your time before you have perfect cookies in your hands.
Citrus – Tired of lemon flavor all the time? The orange notes in these Orange Cranberry Cookies really make these cookies.
Bake Sale Worthy – These cookies are so good, people will think you got them from the local bakery.
If you love fruity baked goods, you’re in luck with this recipe. These flavors are great for the holiday season, but can also be made year round. Plus, these are so good, your friends and family will think you’re lying when you tell them you made these from scratch.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Recipe Discussion
Let’s discuss how to make this recipe, as well as the ingredients that are needed. Please take note that below you will find discussion, expert tips, and answers to frequently asked questions about this recipe to help you recreate it in your kitchen. If you *just* want the recipe itself, scroll down. The full printable recipe itself, with exact measurements and instructions, is found at the bottom of this page.
- Butter – Use the salted butter for this recipe.
- Sugar – This recipe calls for white granulated sugar. If you don’t have any, you can substitute an even amount of either brown sugar or powdered sugar.
- Almond Extract – Almond extract adds a great level of flavor to these cookies. You don’t have to use it, but I highly recommend it. You can also substitute it for vanilla extract.
- Orange Zest – You can make orange zest by using a zester and shaving off the peel of the orange.
- Dried Cranberries – Use whatever brand you like, I used Craisins. Make sure you finely chop the dried cranberries before adding them to the cookies.
- White Chocolate – This ingredient is optional, but you can melt it down, and drizzle it over the top once the cookies are baked. If you’re not a fan, you can make an icing to drizzle over instead. Just mix 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons of either milk or water.
- Cornstarch – If you don’t have cornstarch, you can just use 2 extra tablespoons of flour.
How To Make Orange Cranberry Cookies
- Start by preheating the oven to 325° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set that aside and grab a large bowl. To the bowl, add the butter and sugar.
- Cream it together until smooth before adding in the almond extract.
- In a separate large bowl, add the flour and cornstarch and whisk it together.
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix it together until well combined.
- To the dough, add in the orange zest and chopped dried cranberries.
- Flour a flat surface, and grab a rolling pin. Place your dough into the center of the dough and roll it out until it’s about ¼ an inch thick.
- Cut out even circle cookies using a 2.5 inch round cookie cutter. Repeat with the scraps until you run out of dough.
- Place the cookies on the parchment lined baking sheet and bake them in the oven for about 12 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies turn a light golden brown.
- Take the cookies out and let them cool completely. Once cooled, drizzle the white chocolate over the top of the cookies. Serve and enjoy!
Recipe Tips and Advice
Perfectly Round Cookies – If you want that perfectly smooth, rounded look for your cookies, bake them for 10 minutes then pull them out of the oven and set the cookie cutter carefully around the edge of a cookie and move in a circular motion to shape the cokie and smooth the edges, then return them to the oven to finish baking. Otherwise, when you bake them you will get that traditional spreaded look.
Storage – Store the leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week. You can also keep them in the fridge for up to 10 days or in the freezer for 3 months.
Equipment – For this recipe you’ll need a few mixing bowls, a baking tray, parchment paper, a flat surface and rolling pin, and a 2.5 inch round cookie cutter.
Make ahead
You can make the dough ahead of time, roll it out, cut it into circles and freeze them until you’re ready to bake. I actually recommend freezing the circles for an hour before you bake them, the cookies will hold their shape a little better. If you do decide to freeze the cookies ahead of time, add on an extra 2 minutes of baking time.
Recipe FAQs
For this recipe, I don’t recommend using fresh instead of dried cranberries, just because you don’t want the dough to become too wet.
More Cookie Recipes To Try
Enjoy these cookies with a glass of milk, or a warm cup of tea. If you liked this recipe, check out a few more delicious cookie recipes!
- Cranberry Bliss Bars
- Raspberry Crumble Cookies
- Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
- Sugar Cookie Fruit Pizza
- White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies
- Linzer Cookies
- Pecan Sandies
Orange Cranberry Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup salted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons orange zest
- 1 cup dried cranberries finely chopped
- 2 ounces white chocolate melted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- Cream together the butter and sugar. Mix in the almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and cornstarch. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and blend until incorporated. Mix in the orange zest and dried cranberries.
- Onto a well-floured surface, roll the dough out to about a ¼ inch thick. Cut out the cookies with a 2.5 inch cookie cutter.
- Place the cookies on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. These cookies can spread a bit when baking so leave some space between each one on the cookie sheet.
- Bake the cookies at 325 degrees for 12 minutes, or until the edges just barely start to turn golden.
- When the cookies have cooled completely, use a fork to drizzle the white chocolate over them.
Notes
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Phyllis says
All the cookies look gre
at, I will try these recipes. Thanks Phyllis