Buttery, soft cranberry orange shortbread cookies coated in almonds perfectly highlights the flavors of tart cranberries and zesty orange with a nice crunch from almonds.
Author:Winnie Reeves
Prep Time:40 Minutes (Not Including Refrigeration Time)
Cook Time:14 Minutes
Total Time:54 minutes
Yield:32 Cookies 1x
Ingredients
Scale
3 Cups (375 g) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, Spooned and Leveled
3/4 Cup (83 g) Powdered Sugar, Sifted
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup + 2 Tablespoons (17 oz) Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
6 Tablespoons (90 ml) Heavy Cream, Room Temperature
In a large mixing bowl, add the flour and salt. Whisk ingredients to combine.
In the bowl of a stand mixer or with a hand-held electric mixer, cream the butter, powdered sugar, and orange zest at medium high speed for 3-4 minutes until mixture appears fluffy and light yellow in appearance.
Reduce mixer speed to low as the heavy cream and vanilla extract are mixed into butter-sugar mixture. Increase mixer speed to medium high and mix wet batter until it appears smooth, about 1 minute.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture at low speed just until cookie dough forms. Take care to not overmix cookie dough.
With a rubber spatula, fold the dried cranberries into cookie dough.
Shape cranberry orange shortbread cookies dough into (2) 8 inch logs that is 2 inch in diameter.
Tightly wrap logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3-4 hours or overnight. (If refrigerating overnight, allow cranberry orange shortbread cookies dough logs to sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to soften up a bit. This will make it easier to coat and slice into cookies.)
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Line (2) large baking sheets with parchment paper/silicone baking mats. Alternatively, cookies may be baked in batches with (1) large baking sheet.
Add almonds to a large shallow dish/pan.
In a small mixing bowl, add egg white with 1 tablespoon (15ml) water and whisk to combine.
Retrieve cranberry orange shortbread cookies dough logs from the fridge.
Working with one cranberry orange shortbread cookies dough log at a time, brush some of the egg white mixture over the outer perimeter of the log and coat in almonds ensuring that the whole log is covered. Repeat this process with the second log.
Slice cranberry orange shortbread cookies dough logs into equal 1/4 inch slices. You should end up with 32 slices total.
Divide cookie slices between baking sheet (s) and bake for 12-14 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through bake time.
Cool cranberry orange shortbread cookies on baking sheet for 3-4 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool to room temperature.
Notes
Cranberry orange shortbread cookies are best eaten the day it is baked but will last 4-5 days at room temperature stored in an airtight container.
For a more buttery cookie, replace the 6 tablespoons heavy cream with 6 tablespoons butter.
Instead of rolling cranberry orange cookies in almonds, cookies may be rolled in coarse sugar like turbinado sugar for added crunch. Alternatively, cranberry orange cookies may be baked without any coating as well.
I find using a pastry brush is the best way to apply egg white mixture to cookie dough logs before coating in almonds.
For a smaller quantity of cookies, recipe for cranberry orange shortbread cookies may be halved for a yield of 16 cookies.