Cranberry Swirl Cookies that taste even better than they look
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These cranberry swirl cookies made with a rich shortbread dough and a simple cranberry and raspberry filling with the added awesome punchy flavor of candied orange peel are an easy to make slice and bake cookie.
This cookie won Christmas for my family. After all of my Christmas baking, I wanted to have a couple of easy to make cookies for the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s. Boy howdy do these ones fit the bill. The filling is loaded the kind of lift your mood kind of sweet tart taste that’s the perfect contrast to the buttery tender cookie.
Also, I love that slice and bake cookies put all the work up front. When you’re ready to bake, just pull the log from the freezer and, well, slice and bake.
Whatever time of year it is, it’s a good time for these cookies. Grab some craisins and let’s bake em!
Cranberry Swirl Cookies
Why you’ll want a log of this cookie dough in your freezer
- Contrast: These are big drama cookies. The deep red filling is not only gorgeous against the pale buttery shortbread, but the bright cranberry raspberry with pops of candied orange have a refreshing bite with a little bit of chew you don’t always get in a cookie.
- Make them plain or jazzy: You can make these cookies extra fancy by rolling the log in sanding sugar before baking. I was at the end of my gold sugar when I made this batch, but just imagine that there’s more there, lol.
- Nice round cookies: With my easy hack for getting a nice round log of dough, you’ll end up with gorgeous cookies that slice just right.
- Make them whenever you feel like it: Slice and bake cookies have all the convenience of store-bought logs of dough without the trashy ingredients. If you’ve got a last-minute anything to go to and a log of this dough in the freezer, you’re about 15 minutes away from cookies that will impress the toughest crowd, my friends.
My can’t miss hack for lovely round slice and bake cookies
I don’t know where I learned this, but I’ve been using this hack for years, and it always gives you nice evenly round cookies.
That’s wonderful because I think the hardest thing about a slice and bake cookie is that you can end up with flat tire looking edges that get flatter when you go to cut them. This fixes both problems and there’s two parts here:
- Wrap the dough log in a paper towel tube: The paper towel supports the dough and also gives it a mold that it can rest in as it chills. Use the tube to roll the dough inside the tube to help round off the edges and then wrap the dough inside the tube for chilling. This way when you go to bake you’ll start with round edges.
- Turn as you bake: Every cookie you cut off the log, rotate the log about a quarter turn. This will equalize the pressure the knife puts on the log, keeping, you guessed it, round edges.
Ingredients for Cranberry Swirl Cookies
Cranberry raspberry filling
- Dried cranberries
- Raspberry jam
- Candied orange peel (25 g), optional, but awesome
Butter Cookie dough
- All-purpose flour
- Butter
- Powdered sugar
- Egg yolk
- Vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- Salt
Cranberry Swirl Cookies
- Total Time: 3 hours 14 minutes, largely unattended
- Yield: about 36 cookies 1x
Description
This slice and bake cookie brings big dramatic looks and big flavor with very little work. If you have a log of this hanging out in your freezer, you’re just about 15 minutes away from fresh impressive looking cookies any time you want.
Ingredients
Filling
- 3 ounces dried cranberries (85 g)
- 1/3 cup raspberry jam, plus a little more (120 g)
- 1/4 cup candied orange peel (25 g), optional, but awesome
Dough
- 1 cup all-purpose flour (130 g)
- 1 stick of butter at room temperature (113 g)
- 1/2 cup (60 g) powdered sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- pinch of salt
Decorating (optional)
- 1 egg white
- Sanding sugar, in any color
Instructions
Make the filling
- Place the cranberries with the jam in a blender jar and pulse until the cranberries are smooth.
- Scoop the cranberry mix into a small pan and heat it over medium just until it comes to a boil.
- Chop up the candied orange peel into very small pieces and then stir them into the cranberries.
- This filling can be made up to a week ahead of time (just pop it in the fridge, covered).
Make the dough log
- Using a paddle attachment on a stand mixer, mix the powdered sugar, butter and egg yolk until just combined.
- Add in the vanilla and the salt to the butter to combine. The mixture should be well-combined but not fluffy.
- Pour in the flour, then pulse the mixer a few times before letting it run just long enough for the flour to disappear–about 10 seconds. Turn off the mixer, and use a baking spatula to squish in any flour that’s hanging out at the bottom of the bowl.
Place two large pieces of plastic wrap together on the counter. Scoop the dough into the middle of the plastic, and then use the edges of the plastic to press the dough into a rectangular log.- Place a piece of parchment on your work space. Sprinkle it with a little flour, and then place the dough log in the middle. Sprinkle the dough with a little more flour, and then top it with a second piece of parchment.
- Roll the dough between the two pieces of parchment into a 1/4″ thick rectangle. Do your best to square the edges. Having made the dough into a rectangular log earlier will help.
- Spread the filling across the dough in one even layer.
- Use the parchment to help roll the dough up over the filling on the long edge, making a tight roll. Wrap the plastic wrap from earlier tightly around the dough.
- Cut open a paper towel tube and slip the plastic wrapped dough inside it. Roll the dough inside the tube on the counter to help round off the edges of the log. You can rotate the tube and move it along the log to make sure you round off all sides and any dough that extends beyond the tube. Place a rubber band or two around the paper towel tube.
- Pop the dough, wrapped in the paper towel tube and all in the freezer for at least 2 hours and up to 1 month.
Baking the cookies
- When you’re ready to bake, Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 F). Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Whisk the egg white just to break it up.
- Pour out a thick line of sanding sugar on a piece of parchment paper. Unwrap the chilled dough and brush it with the egg white.
- Roll the dough in the sugar, pressing the sugar into the surface of the dough all the way around the log. Make sure to cover all the dough for the prettiest cookies.
- Cut and bake: cut 1/4″ slices of dough, rolling the log a quarter turn after each slice to keep the cookies round and even. Bake for 20-22 minutes until the bottoms are lightly browned and the cookies are firm.
- Cool and enjoy: Let the cookies cool thoroughly on the baking sheets. Store cookies in an airtight tin for up to 2 weeks. You can also freeze them for up to 2 months.
Notes
Change it up
Feel free to use other dried fruits and jams for the filling. Dried apricots and cherry jam is particularly nice, but really, anything goes. Dried figs and apricot jam is also really delicious, especially if you add in a handful of chopped chocolate.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- + 2 hours freezing time:
- Cook Time: 44 minutes
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 69
- Sugar: 6.2 g
- Sodium: 7.3 mg
- Fat: 2.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 10.6 g
- Protein: 0.7 g
- Cholesterol: 11.9 mg
