Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Dried cranberry and white chocolate chip cookies

July 4th is not a holiday that I get off from work.  Unless I take a vacation day, which I just never think to do.  So on any typical July 4th, I usually come home from work exhausted and watch the fireworks on television.  Except for the one year that they opened up the roof of my building and that year I came home from work and watched them from up there.  Admittedly, the view was pretty awesome.


This year, July 4th falls on a Thursday.  Which is, of course, my late night at work.  So I'll rush over to B's after work to watch the fireworks from his building's roof deck (he lives closer to my office than I do, plus they didn't let us go on my roof last year, so I presume it's not going to be open again this year).


So, suffice it to say, I haven't really had a reason to bake for July 4th in quite some time.  Because I'm rushing from work to B's, I'm pretty sure I am not going to be schlepping cupcakes or a cake from home to work to B's. 

But, I wanted to bake today, and ended up deciding that I really wanted to have those white chocolate chip and dried cranberry cookies that I had set out to bake last month.  And then you know what I realized?  They're red and white!  I thought about adding some blueberries so that they were red, white, and blue for July 4th, but didn't think that would be too tasty.  So I went with red and white cookies for July 4th.  And the best part?  They're cookies, so they're totally transportable (may not be an actual word, but you know what I mean.).  In hindsight, I could have added dried blueberries, which would've added the blue and would have probably tasted good.  Maybe I'll try those out soon. 


Now those of you that actually know me know that I'm a little Type A/OCD (although my dad would claim that I'm not just a little type A - I believe that his actual quote was "you're not laid back, you're type A, cubed"), so I like my cookies uniform in size.  So I used my little cookie scooper.  But I find it hard to use on refridgerated dough, so this time I didn't let the dough chill and just baked them as soon as the dough was done, but baked them for 7 minutes instead of 8-9.  But the first batch still came out a little domed, and I thought about flattening the following batches, but these fell a little after the cooled, so I didn't need to.  And, as you already know, I love all things mini (OK, almost all things mini), so the cookies are small.  Which may explain why I got 75 cookies out of this batch of dough (although the original said it makes 2.5 dozen, or 30 cookies).

*And, of course, after I wrote this whole blog post, my schedule at work got changed, and guess what....I'm not working on July 4th!  Go figure.*

Soft Baked White Chocolate Chip and Dried Cranberry Cookies
From Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients:
 
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
3/4 cup dried cranberries
 
Directions:
 
Line an ungreased cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
Set aside.
 
In a large bowl using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together on medium speed until fluffy and light in color.
Mix in egg and vanilla.
Scrape down the sides as needed.
On low speed, mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
Stir in white chocolate chips and dried cranberries.
 
Chill dough (covered) for 30 minutes or up to 3 days -- I skipped this part.
 
Preheat oven to 350F.
Drop balls of dough onto cookie sheet OR used a standard-sized cookie scoop.
Bake for 8-9 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges -- I baked mine for 6-7 minutes. Do NOT cook them longer than 9 minutes.
Remove and let cool for 5-10 minutes on the cookie sheet (If cookies do not spread at all, gently press down with a spoon when they come out of the oven.)
Transfer to cooling rack.

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