Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies are delicious, soft cream cheese cookies with fresh cranberries and white chocolate chunks. These Christmas cookies are overloaded with white chocolate and tangy fresh cranberries for a bright festive look. They would be the perfect addition to your holiday cookie tray! It’s just a seasonal, festive version of my Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies.
Fresh Cranberry Cookies with White Chocolate Chunks
Cranberries and white chocolate is one of my favorite flavor combinations ever! Christmas is just around the corner. It’s one of my favorite times of year and the perfect time for this flavor combo! White chocolate and cranberries are my favorite add-in when I’m doing my holiday baking. These two provide a great holiday feel to any desserts.
If you love this flavor combo as much as I do, then you must check my White Chocolate Cranberry Cheesecake Cake, Christmas Cranberry Pound Cake and Cranberry Pistachio White Chocolate Truffles.
However, let get back to today’s recipe- Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies. The perfect cookie recipe, just in time for Christmas! If you start thinking about holiday baking, consider these cookies, too. Red and white coloring adds a great holiday feel to any cookie tray. These are perfect Christmas cookies. And it’s a great recipe to make while the fresh cranberries are still in the store.
Have you ever baked with fresh cranberries or you use them just to make the sauce? If you haven’t you’ve been missing a lot! Bright, fresh, tangy cranberries are totally different from dried cranberries. They taste so good in desserts, trust me!
How to Make Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
First, bring the ingredients to room temperature. Egg, butter and cream cheese must be room temperature.
Although the butter must be at room temperature it should not be too soft, or the cookies will overspread. Room temperature butter means that when you poke it with your finger you should make an indent without sinking into the butter. It should be cool to touch, not warm and shouldn’t be too greasy or shiny.
These Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies recipe uses only half of the usual amount of butter and the other half is replaced with cream cheese. Cream cheese perfectly complements white chocolate and cranberry flavor.
In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese with vanilla, and sugar. Add an egg and mix to combine. Then, slowly mix in dry ingredients until evenly combined. Fold in chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips.
Finally, fold in chopped cranberries. Chill the dough for 30 minutes, then roll a heaping tablespoon of cookie dough and arrange on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. You can stick a few pieces of chopped cranberries on each cookie dough ball, just for prettier presentation. Bright red cranberries give them a festive holiday appearance.
Bake cookies just 8-10 minutes at 375 F. They should be lightly golden around the edges. The cookies will be soft when removing them from the oven so you should cool them 5-10 minutes on the baking sheet, until slightly harden, then remove to a rack to cool completely.
You can press a few white chocolate chunks or chips n a warm cookie, but it’s just for appearance.
Happy baking!
Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
Prep Time: 15 minutes- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
Yield: 36 small cookies 1x
Category: desserts
Method: bake
Cuisine: American
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Description
Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies are delicious, soft and chewy cream cheese cookies with fresh cranberries and white chocolate chunks.
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour-spoon and leveled (see notes)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter-room temperature
- 4 oz. brick-style cream cheese-room temperature
- 1 ½ cup sugar
- 1 large egg-room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- 8 oz. white baking chocolate-finely chopped in small pieces (you can use with white chocolate chips)
- 1 ½ cup fresh cranberries-cut into quarters
Instructions
- Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese with vanilla, and sugar. Add an egg and mix to combine.
- Slowly mix in dry ingredients until evenly combined.
- Fold in chopped white chocolate. Finally, fold in chopped cranberries.
- Preheat the oven to 375 F and place the rack in the center position.
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Roll 1-inch balls of cookie dough and arrange on baking sheets leaving 2 inches space apart.
- You can stick a few pieces of cranberries on each cookie dough ball, just for prettier presentation.
- Bake 8-10 minutes, or until lightly golden around the edges. When removing the cookies from the oven you can press a few white chocolate chunks (or chips) on warm cookie, it will melt and stick onto cookie (this is also just for prettier look).
- The cookies will be soft when removing them from the oven. Cool them 5-10 minutes on the baking sheet, until slightly harden, then remove to a rack to cool completely.
Notes
Update: after many people said that their cookies did not spread during baking, I reduced the amount of flour in the recipe from 2 and 3/4 cups to 2 and 1/2 cups. I made them with 2 3/4 cups (measured the flour correctly-spoon and leveled- 330 gams) and they spread as you can see in the photos.
65 comments
This looks delicious! I’m looking for a recipe for Christmas Caroling with our church family. I see in the directions to mix in sugar but I was looking for the amount to use in the list. Could you give that amount please.
Sorry, I added to the list.
I made this cookies exact measures to scale and cup. Cookie dough to dry and didnt spread. Was under cooked. Maybe my elevation? I think I will leave out 30g of flour next time and try again.
Do these freeze well?
I have all the ingredients, and really want to make these, but how much sugar? It’s not in the ingredients list.
Hi Martha, thanks for noticing that, I added to the list.
Hi Vera, any substitute for fresh cranberries? Can I use frozen or dried cranberries?
Hi bee, I don’t know will the frozen cranberries work this recipe, but dried cranberries will work fine. I ave similar recipe with white chocolate and dried cranberries https://omgchocolatedesserts.com/white-chocolate-cranberry-cookies/
I made these tonight, they are delicious! I decreased the sugar to 1 cup as some suggested and decreased the amount of cranberries a bit saving some for the top. Also added in chopped pistachios and placed a few on top as well with the cranberries and dusted with sanding sugar. Very pretty!
(Cutting cranberries is time intensive, I might try them in the food processor next time….)
Hi Vera so excited to bake these cookies! Do you know if they can be frozen now and served at Christmas? Thank you. Happy Holidays.
Hi Sheila, I haven’t tried to freeze them, but think it will work fine. Happy baking!
I can’t find fresh cranberries , could I use frozen or would dried be better? Thanks
Hi Trish, dried cranberries will work fine, I’m not sure about frozen
How long do these cookies last for if you want to gift them?
Do you think macadamia nuts would be good in this?
You can add them if you like.
Due to cream cheese content how should these cookies be stored after baking ? Chill or counter top ?
This type of cookie can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature for two days.
These are awesome
Hi I just found your recipe. I saw you thought they could be frozen. Would you freeze the dough or freeze them after baking them?
You can bake them and freeze.
For those with problems finding cranberries – (or like me, love this idea but HATE cranberries in any form!) here are options based on very similar recipe that I make (without cream cheese – definitely going to give this a whirl!!!) : craisins (found with the dried dried fruit, not what I use but my neighbor does), dried cherries, candied cherries, maraschino cherries (cut in 1/4 and .lay on paper towel 1/2-1 hour to dry out some. Too wet & they will may the dough too “wet”), dried pineapple, dried apricots.
All of the above will need to be cut small. Hope this helps those who can’t find cranberries or want these at a different time of year!
Are you sure about the amount of flour? My cookies turned out tough. They also didn’t spread while baking.
Hi Paula, yes it is correct, 2 3/4 cups of flour or 340 grams.
I’m having the same issue. Mine are in the oven and I’m re-reading the recipe because they’re not spreading. Also, very dry.?
Are you? properly measuring.. Spooning the flour into the cup and then gently leveling by running something flat over the cup?.. I found in the past that I was incorrectly scooping my flour. and it greatly affected my recipe.
One cup of all purpose and most other flours is 120 grams. Therefore, 2 3/4 cup of flour would measure out to 300 grams. It could be that’s the reason for the toughness and dryness. I made these using 300 grams of flour and they came out wonderful. Thanks Vera for sharing the recipe
Thanks Beth!
Actually 2.75 (2 3/4) x 120= 330 grams
My opinion on these cookies. I followed the directions exactly. Cooking time takes longer. My first batch looked like the cookies in the picture, but they were underdone on the inside. I used two ovens, gas and electric with the same results. They need to be cooked longer than 10 minutes. They did bake beautifully with the right temperature of ingredients. The consistency is wonderful; probably because of the cream cheese. They are AWFULLY sweet! I thought the tart cranberries would cut some of the sweetness, but they didn’t. I see there are previous comments about the amount of sugar not being listed. Maybe there is a typo now? I would cut the sugar down to one cup, maybe even 3/4 cup. Next time, I would also sub dark chocolate chips instead of white chips, or use a 3:1 ratio of dark to white to give the cookies a richness and cut out the sweetness. Lastly, fresh cranberries have a ton of seeds. I quartered my cranberries and rinsed them again to remove excess seeds so they didn’t end up in my cookies. Next time, I will try dried as commented above.
This is my first time cooking with fresh cranberries, do I add them raw or cook them before adding to the cookies?
Hi Kristin, use raw cranberries.
“I Would Like To Comment On This Recipe For Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies. I Made These Yesterday As They Looked Very Good For Christmas However I Found Them To Be Way To Sweet And I Had Even Cut Back The Sugar. Because Of The Chocolate Chips Being So Sweet The Whole Cookie For Me Was Not Edible. If You Are A Diabetic I Would Not Recommend This Recipe. I’m Not Sure Who Will Be Able To Eat This Batch Because Of The Extreme Sugar. Hope This Is Helpful For Someone Else. Right Now For Me They Are Just Pretty On The Plate.”
Cooking our first batch now. They seemed very dry as mixed and are not spreading much in oven. Any ideas or suggestions?
Made these cookies this afternoon and they taste just as I had hoped! The fresh cranberries add a nice bit of tart and balance out the sweet. I’m going to keep a few out but freeze the rest to ensure there are enough for Christmas!
Can you use dried cranberries and what kind of orange can you put in these because cranberries and orange are delicious together?
One cup of all purpose and most other flours is 120 grams. Therefore, 2 3/4 cup of flour would measure out to 330 grams. It could be that’s the reason for the toughness and dryness. I made these using 330 grams of flour and they came out wonderful. Thanks Vera for sharing the recipe
I seriously can’t even stir the dough it’s so tough and I haven’t even added all of the dry ingredients yet! I have done everything like you said….ugh.
Delicious! I followed the recipe almost exactly, added one more egg because they did look a little dry. Also, like recommended I placed more cranberry on top before baking and added a few white chocolate chips on top after baking. My husband ate 6 in about 10 minutes.
These are absolutely amazing! My favourite Christmas cookie!
White chocolate desserts are some of our favorite. We love them with candy toppings but may try some fruit at some point. We look forward to reading more great recipe ideas. Thanks for posting and Happy Holidays!
Just made these, I decreased sugar to 1 cup. They came out delicious! I hope they last for the party tonight.
How do you suggest we store these? I made them and two days later they were soggy.
These cookies are delicious, but after sitting for 3 days in a sealed container they turned a blue-ish color inside. Could they really have molded that quickly? The outside still appears normal. Any thoughts?
Hi Ashley,
Based on my experience from making the cookies tonight, I suspect that since the outside seems OK, it’s probably not mold. As my cookies baked, they turned a bluish color. I’m pretty sure it was from the cranberries — I rinsed my cut cranberries to remove the seeds and then dried them on paper towels, but as the dough sat, more and more moisture (and color) from the cranberries came out, and went into the dough. The dough started out dry and whitish but was wet and sticky and had an almost grayish tint to it by the time I had formed it all into balls for baking. I could also see the cookies turning bluish as they baked – even the ones that were more white when I put them on the baking sheet. But they still taste great — and I probably won’t need to worry about how long they last in storage, because they’ll be gone long before that becomes an issue!
Will blueberries also work for this in place of cranberries
If you use blueberries, do not chop them, they will tint the dough
Will blueberries also work in place of cranberries?
I just made this recipe, and the cookies are delicious! I used 2-1/2 cups of flour, spooning gently and leveling like I was taught to do way back in junior high home economics. The dough was very hard to mix and seemed very dry. BUT once I added the cranberries, it got much softer and was easy to manage. The longer the dough sat, the more the moisture from the cranberries came out and made the dough almost too soft/wet. It also made the cookies look almost bluish. But they still tasted great and since they were just for me (not company) I don’t really mind. I had rinsed the cranberries to remove the seeds, which may have been at least part of the problem, even though I dried them on paper towels afterward. Also, I cut back on the white chocolate chips to decrease the sweetness — I snacked on a small handful of chips (as we ALL do) before adding them, and realized how sweet the chips are. I’ll definitely make these cookies again and may decrease the chips even more, but I’ll still rinse the seeds from the cranberries and just deal with the bluish color. Thanks for a great recipe!
I just reviewed this recipe — thought the cookies were delicious — but I forgot to mention that they took at least 12 minutes to cook.
Made this recipe once last year for a work pot luck and ate probably 5 of them before I even got there they were SO good! Glad I made a triple batch! This was literally like a year ago now but they were a HUGE hit. People were begging me for more for weeks! Totally forgot about them until yesterday because people were still talking about how good they were! Went out and got enough for a 4x batch right away. So great for this time of year too! Hands down best cookies I’ve ever eaten. I’m going to make a blueberry lemon cheesecake (or something like that) version this spring. Yummmmmm! Thank you so much for this divine recipe!
Thanks so much Renee!
These are delicious AND look pretty! I was hesitant with what looked like a large amount of cranberries, but they baked in and added to the appeal of the cookie, in both taste and presentation. Thanks for the recipe!
Definitely needs the extra cup of flour! I didn’t worry too much about the seeds the second time I made them, enough just cutting the cranberries. Excellent cookie with the extra flour!
I’ve had this recipe pinned now for over a year and just made them today. All six people in my house love them! A bit fussy to make but well worth it. A great Cookie
Please indicate what kind of cranberries you use. Can you use cranberries from a can?
I use fresh cranberries.
I to made these cookies but they did not spread out , they taste good also raw in the middle.I will cook a little longer
Just now making these cookies. They are sweet but good tasting. I took my metal spatula and flattened the cookies right after I took them from the oven. Also I put a lot more of the cut up cranberries on top and side of the unbaked cookies and they came out looking great. Next time I will use less sugar ( 1 cup?) And use 5 oz of white chocolate chips instead of 8 oz and add two cups of cranberries instead of 1 1/2 to see if that cuts down on the sweetness. These are great Christmas cookies. Very pretty!
How are you supposed to store these?
I made these and they were delicious. I stored them in a tin can and 2 days later they are so soft that they stick together and are getting soggy,
Other people have asked that question but I did not see an answer, thanks.
Can you half the recipe
These cookies were ridiculously good! I made 3 batches for the holidays. I went to my parents, they devoured them. I went to my in-laws, they devoured them. And the batch I made for my family was barely even out of the oven. I did notice, the baking times need to be increased when using a fresh cookie sheet, or one that has been cooling. Either way, I will be making these again, and again! Thank you for the newest recipe in my collection!
I’m glad I checked this online again! I had the recipe printed off and wanted to check if it was the same one I used. I see you changed the amount of flour. I don’t recall a problem, but I’ll reduce my flour when i bake this year. Thanks!
I had to use up some unused cranberries from Thanksgiving this past year, when everyone in our family got sick, and I never ended up making cranberry sauce. This recipe was perfect! I used the recipe as directed, with all the flour, as I was definitely using fresh cranberries. It was perfect! The other commenters saying the dough was too thick must have been using dried cranberries because my dough was almost too wet! Kinda made rolling them a bit messy, so I used spoons. It turned out beautifully, though. My son absolutely loves the end result!
Would strawberries be good instead of cranberries