11
Dec
2009
Christmas Cookies! White Chocolate & Cranberry Shortbread
What gets you in the mood?
For Christmas that is…
Yesterday I would have paid someone for an injection of Christmas spirit. It is mid December & I was scrunching up my nose in disgust at Christmas cards, sighing with contempt at Christmas crowds, turning a deaf ear to Christmas carols. But today I have my Christmas shortbread, and a spring in my step.
It never feels like Christmas until I have made these & this year I also made some dark chocolate ones to keep things interesting.
White Chocolate & Cranberry Shortbread
Ingredients:
- 250g unsalted butter, softened & chopped
- 1 vanilla bean seeds scraped or 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 75g caster sugar
- 2 1/4 cups plain flour
- 1/4 cup rice flour
- 1/3 cup chopped dried sweetened cranberries (approx, I have never actually bothered to measure)
- 1/3 cup chopped white chocolate (approx)
Method:
- Preheat the oven to slow (150°C). Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out seeds. Beat the butter, vanilla seeds and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until smooth.
- Add cranberries & chocolate.
- Stir in the sifted flours and press mixture together to form a firm dough.
- Lay out 2 long sheets of cling wrap & place the dough on top in a long thin log, roll into a sausage & tie off the ends & refrigerate for 20 mins (I did it overnight…obviously not with the oven preheating though)
- Slice & place on a baking tray, leaving a little room for them to spread. Bake for 25minutes until very lightly golden.
* For dark choc variation add 1/3 cup dark chopped chocolate
Glad you found your Christmas spirit
just had to come in and say two things:
1. i totally didn’t look at your blog before posting like, the exact same post on the exact same day. i started writing it a few days before and didnt even notice the creepy resemblance till just now!
2. i totally made these yesterday. the amount of compliments from my tastebuds and coworkers have been astounding, thankyou for a LOVELY recipe!
p.s. just focused out from looking at your pictures of shortbread and saw your new layout, supercute!
Hi Mich,
Thanks I’m glad you enjoyed them, I am thinking about adding a little orange zest to them next year. How dead simple are they by the way, I always feel like I’m somehow cheating when I make them.
The layout is just a temporary one, I am having the whole thing redone…I am being annoying though & I want lots of changes to the proof so it will take ages. I am super exited about it though. I hope you & your family have a great Christmas, I won’t be posting over the holiday season because I will be abroad (gosh that’s fun to say) Talk next year!