These White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies are so delicious and festive. Soft and chewy cranberry cookies studded with white chocolate chips and orange zest, create the perfect balance of sweetness from the white chocolate and the tartness of cranberry.
These soft-baked cookies will be a favorite on your Christmas cookie platter this year. Arrange them with your Sugar Cookies and Gingerbread Cookies, and your holiday treats will steal the spotlight at any cookie swap or party you have planned.
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White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
I love serving festive cookies, whether at home, at a friendly cookie swap, or as a gift for a neighbor or friend. While I certainly appreciate the artistry of decorated cookies, I am also thankful when the ingredients themselves naturally elevate the flavor and presentation. If you love easy cookies like the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies, this recipe is for you. These easy-to-make cookies are delicious and effortlessly beautiful with bright red cranberries and snow-white chocolate chips poking through.
You can use fresh or dried cranberries in this recipe, though fresh cranberries are preferred for a softer and brighter cookie (see the comparison below). Fresh cranberries will also need to bake for a couple of minutes longer since they hold a bit more moisture.
Here’s why you will love these Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies:
- Easy to make – This recipe makes 3 dozen cookies, which might sound like a lot, but they’re so sweet, comforting, and giftable so they’ll be gone in no time.
- Festive – The red and white contrast of cranberries and white chocolate morsels will enhance your holiday cookie trays but are fantastic year-round.
- Make ahead – The dough can be made ahead of time and the baked cookies are freezer-friendly.
- Customizable – Want chocolate? Add chocolate chips. Like a crunch? Add nuts. See other variations below. You can also use fresh or dried cranberries.
Ingredients
This cookie recipe requires very little prep. Good-looking cookies do not have to be hard to make. Grab your measuring cups and mixer, because this recipe is nothing more than scoop, measure, pour, and mix.
- Butter – unsalted and softened and room temperature
- Sugar – for sweetness and to help get those perfectly crisp edges
- Brown Sugar – helps to give a chewy texture and richer color
- Flour – all-purpose, or replace with your favorite GF flour. Be sure to measure flour correctly.
- Orange Zest – adds a fresh citrus zing. It’s an easy to way to add great flavor.
- Vanilla – I use my homemade pure Vanilla Extract (These make great holiday gifts too!)
- Egg – should be large and room temperature
- Baking Powder – helps your cookies rise, we don’t want flat cookies on our cookie tray
- Salt – to balance the sweetness
- White Chocolate Chips – I love when these melt giving you little pockets of delicious white chocolate in every bite.
- Cranberries – fresh, coarsely chopped, or substitute with dried cranberries if necessary. If you soak your cranberries in hot water for 15-20 minutes, you’ll get softer cookies.
Substitutions
These cranberry cookies can be made to your flavor preferences- add chopped macadamia nuts or walnuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, lemon zest, or even a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg.
Pro Tip:
Dried cranberries bake 1-3 minutes faster than fresh cranberries (which have more moisture), so be sure to watch your cookies in the oven to prevent them from overcooking. Watch for the edges to turn golden brown and you’ll know they’re done to perfection.
How to Make Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
- Prepare – Preheat the oven to 350°F and line your baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
- Wet Ingredients – Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, in a large bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well to incorporate. Beat in the zest and vanilla extract. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure everything is mixed in.
- Dry Ingredients – In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the butter mixture and beat just until combined and the cookie dough comes together.
- Fold – Using a stiff spatula, fold in the chopped cranberries and white chocolate chips. Don’t overmix, you don’t want to smoosh the cranberries.
- Shape and Bake – Shape into 1-inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on your prepared baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown at the edges (Cookies with dried cranberries will bake faster, about 11-13 minutes).
- Cool – Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Pro Tip:
Use a small trigger-release cookie scoop to get evenly-sized cookie dough balls every time.
Make-Ahead
To store cookies: transfer to an airtight container and keep at room temperature for up to 3 days. Cookies can also be frozen or refrigerated for longer storage.
Make-ahead: If you are not baking right away, wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 72 hours. To bake, remove from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature until the dough softens enough to scoop.
To freeze cookie dough: Place cookie dough balls onto a baking sheet, cover, and freeze for an hour or until solid. Once they are frozen, transfer them to a large Ziploc bag and freeze up to 3 months.
To bake frozen cookie dough: Place the frozen cookie dough balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet and thaw in the refrigerator for 3 hours before baking per the recipe instructions.
Sending you the merriest wishes on your Christmas baking journey. May your oven be precise, your ingredients be plenty, and each cookie be a sweet reflection of the joy and warmth of the season.
More Christmas Cookie Recipes
If you love these Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies, then you’ll want to try these other tried and true Christmas cookies. Try one, or try them all and have the most beautiful holiday spread.
- Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Chocolate Truffles
- Russian Tea Cakes
- Almond Snowball Cookies
- Thumbprint Cookies
- Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (12 Tbsp or 1.5 sticks)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 tsp grated orange zest
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, or use your favorite GF flour, measured correctly
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 3/4 cups white chocolate chips
- 2 cups fresh cranberries (8 oz. bag), coarsely chopped, or substitute 1 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream together the butter and both sugars for 2-3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well to incorporate. Beat in the zest and vanilla extract.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter mixture and beat just until combined and dough comes together.
- Using a stiff spatula, stir in the cranberries and chocolate chips just until incorporated. Shape into 1-inch balls (a small cookie scoop makes it easy) and place 2 inches apart on your prepared baking sheet.
- Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown at the edges (Cookies with dried cranberries will bake faster, about 11-13 minutes).
- Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
Good recipe! Added an orange glaze and they were delicious!
A little bit weird cookie and “it did look and feel more like clumps of mostly cranberries with some chocolate and dough” (citation from another comment) when you are making/forming the balls. I cut the sugar to half since I do not like sweet cookies.
Cookies are very delicious! A bit zesty and fresh due to berries. Thank you for such a great recipe, Natasha.
Made these for Christmas and they came out beautifully. The shape, texture, and taste was divine, and well balanced. I did double the orange zest and add some of the juice as well for more orange flavor, and halved the fresh cranberries, just for personal preference. They’re a huge hit.
I also used the base to make a second batch of coconut orange cookies and they were also delicious. I did have to add more butter for these though. Definitely keeping this recipe around, as it is and for different variations! New Christmas tradition for the family.
Hi Emily, I’m so glad you loved these Cranberry Cookies! Thank you for sharing your variations. Those sound great!
I’ll be making these tomorrow with all purpose flour but if I also want to make them with almond flour, it’s the same measurement? I’m excited to try them!
I have not tested using almond flour to advise. I imagine that will work but some minor adjusments. I hope you enjoy it!
Just made this recipe using what I had. They turned out to be lovely, festive chocolate chip cookies. I added glazed red and green cherries and milk chocolate chips to the batter. Delicious. They’re as pretty as they are tasty. Would’ve loved to post a photo, but alas…
Thank you so much for the recipes. I look forward to trying them.
I followed the tutorials and made these cookies exactly as recipe called for. I did not use to much flour. They do not spread but stay in ball form. These cookies taste good but you have to smash them down to about a 1.5-2 inch circle.
Hi Carmyn, if you are adding flour, make sure to measure correctly for baking. If you push the measuring cup into your flour bin, it can compact the flour and you’ll end up with a dry and crumbly dough.
I’ve made these twice now. I made the first batch exactly as given, except I used 100g of white chocolate chips (cooking with metric in Germany), instead of 135g as I don’t like cookies to be very sweet and white chocolate is very sweet.
I personally found them to be very sweet, which was a little bit amazing considering the recipe calls for 200g of cranberries (an entire package here).
My family found the original amount of cranberries to be too much and I must confess while making the cookie balls to put on the baking sheet, it did look and feel more like clumps of mostly cranberries with some chocolate and dough. The orange peel was an interesting note, but in general I found it only made the sweetness more penetrating.
The cookies were good. People liked them, but literally everyone commented on the large amount of cranberries.
I tried again, because the idea of the cookies and the taste were promising. Again 100g of white chocolate, but this time half of the cranberries and from that I would say I only used half -> 1/4 or maybe 1/3 of the original amount.
Instead of orange zest I used lemon and this time we are all satisfied. Not too sweet for me, not overloaded with cranberries for everyone else and still soft and chewy!
Just made a batch of these using frozen cranberries. I just whirled them a few times in the food processor and used them fully frozen; worked great. I chilled the scooped cookie dough overnight, then baked it cold from the fridge (I like thick, chewy cookies!), but otherwise followed the recipe faithfully and it was delicious! These are my new favorite cookie; I’m stocking up on fresh cranberries this week while they’re on sale!
These cookies are unreal! Absolutely delicious. So easy to make and will have everyone wanting more!
Hi Tasha! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m glad you love the recipe.
This is the best cookie I have ever had in my life!! It is so soft and moist!! AMAZING!!
Didn’t have fresh so I soaked my dried cranberries in orange juice.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Doris!
One of the best cookies so far this Christmas season.thank you!
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Nila!
Made this as a trial for a potluck at work. They were a big hit. Thank you for the recipe 😃
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Ana!
Hi. What can one use in place of Coconut oil?
Hello! You can try butter or for neutral flavor you can try vegetable or canola oil.
All recipes look yummy. I like the set up for printing . Easy.
This looks delicious. But 12 tbs of butter is 2.5 sticks.
HI Ana, there are 8 Tbsp in 1 stick of butter or 113grams. So 12 Tbsp is 1 1/2 sticks.
I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong my cookies keep spreading and not baking they’re just liquid mush. I bet they taste good if they’re actually solid:( they sure smell good
Hi Klare! This can happen if you’re using butter that is too warm or if your wet/dry ingredients ratio is off. I would double check to make sure you’re measuring all of your ingredients correctly. Be sure to fully preheat your oven before you start baking. I highly encourage the use of an internal oven thermometer (Amazon affiliate link) to ensure your oven is heating correctly!
This recipe was tested in a conventional oven.
I made these wonderful cookies for a Christmas cookies exchange. They are delicious, so easy to make. They are very light and tasty.
Hello
My cookies did not spread but remained “chunky”. Why do you think that is?
Hi Ellen! This can happen if you use too much flour. Watch my tutorial on How to Measure Ingredientshere.
Your recipe says nothing about soaking cranberries either fresh or dried? Am I supposed to soak the cranberries?
Hi Sandra. The note is up in the post where I go into detail about each ingredient (above the recipe card). You only soak the cranberries if you are using dried cranberries.
Oh goodness! I misunderstood and soaked my fresh cranberries before I chopped them – ended up with pink cookies. 😂 Oh well, the flavor is there!
I did the same thing! Pink cookies! It’s not clear that it’s only dried cranberries that need soaking. Live and learn to read comments first!