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Cranberry Coin Cookies

I made these refrigerator cookies last Christmas for my extended family and my dear niece quickly became an aficionado of them.  The recipe comes from a Martha Stewart Holiday 2010 publication and I've since made them several times.  Dried cranberries are among my favorite things because they are tart, tangy, chewy and so good.  Although this recipe doesn't call for it, I like to add 2 teaspoons of freshly grated orange zest.  Cranberries and orange complement each other wonderfully.  The nice thing about this type of cookie dough is that you can freeze it ahead of time and slice & bake it whenever the mood strikes you. 



Here's the cookie dough all finished.   Even though I use a stand mixer, I still like to give my dough a final
stir with a large spatula.  I want every slice to have a good amount of cranberries.

The dough is divided among 2 pieces of plastic wrap.


I pull the wrap over the dough and press firmly with the palms of my hands as I roll it into a log.  What you want to have is a log that is the same circumference from tip to tip.  Twist the plastic wrap at the ends to seal shut.

The inner tube from a spent paper towel roll gets split open and I place my dough in it.  As the dough chills, it will retain its rounded shape instead of flattening out on one side.  I learned this from Dorie Greenspan.  A very good thing.



Again, I took some liberties here with this recipe.  Roll the chilled dough in a dish filled with fine or coarse sanding sugar until completely coated.  This gives the cookies crunch and a lot of sparkle. 


Here they are cooling on a rack.  Their texture is delicate, melt-in-your-mouth and their taste is sweet and tart all at the same time.





Indeed, these are wonderful to make for the Christmas season because of their festive red color, but they're delicious any time of year.  I hope you give these cookies a try for your kids or nieces and nephews.  Not only is this an easy cookie to make, it's a wonderful cookie to have in the cookie jar.  Cheers!

Comments

  1. Perfecting PruMarch 31, 2011 at 3:55 AM

    You are right, orange compliments cranberries so well - and apple too I found out the other day. These cookies look so good. I love how uniformed they look.

    BTW, I cleaned a pair of silver earrings using your method with the bicarbonate of soda and they worked a treat. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good Things by DavidMarch 31, 2011 at 11:09 AM

    I will have to try cranberries mixed with apples in the near future (thank you!). You should definitely give these cookies a try, you're going to love them.

    Wonderful! I'm so glad you were able to get the desired results with your earrings. Good hearing from you Pru!

    ReplyDelete

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