Hello Cookie: White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

Here is a great idea for holiday giving.  Actually, anything with cranberries reminds me of Christmas, and combined with white chocolate, and in shortbread form, well, all I can picture are snowmen with beady red eyes and a carrot nose.

While I'm on the topic, why is shortbread considered such a Christmas thing?  I may have to spend couple of hours later looking it up...  Anyway, I made these cookies to give to the girlies at Ellie's lunch last week.  They were made even more sweet with the addition of decorated tags, courtesy of my extensive scrapbooking stash.  Details further on.

These are a very 'short' cookie, with the smoothness of white chocolate and colourful specks of cranberries throughout.  Take a bite and imagine bells jingling and snowmen melting on the lawn.

White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies
makes about 60 small cookies

Ingredients
250g butter, at room temperature
125g (3/4 cup) icing sugar mixture
1 tsp vanilla essence
300g (2 cups) plain flour
75 g (1/2 cup) dried cranberries (craisins), coarsely chopped
100g white chocolate, finely chopped

Method
1.  Preheat oven to 106 deg C.  Line baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2.  Use an electric mixer to beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla in a bowl until very pale and creamy.  Beat the mixture until it's almost white in colour or it won't incorporate the flour.
3.  Stir in the flour, cranberries and chocolate.  Mix until the dough comes together.  If the weather is warm and the dough is sticky, you may need to refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before continuing.
4.  Roll the dough into balls the size of a walnut. Place about 3cm apart on the baking trays. Flatten slightly with a fork.
5.  Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden.  Cool on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6.  These cookies will last for about 1 week in an airtight container.

Recipe from Good Taste magazine (Dec 2008)

Ingredients: Craisins, butter, plain flour, vanilla essence, icing sugar mixture, white chocolate

The colour of the cranberries is so intense!

As always, I ended up with so many cookies.  The original recipe says 'makes 35', so how come I end up with 60? 

I placed some cookies in a cupcake liner and wrapped them in cellophane paper.  Then I tied them with ribbon and attached a tag. The tag was made using a Stampin' Up snowflake stamp (with glitter glued on for sparkle).  The scallop background is of Basic Grey paper.