Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies

by Sabrina Snyder

Published on

13 Comments

5 from 5 votes
24 Cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Refrigerate 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
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Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies are an excellent, old fashioned Christmas cookie. Made with vanilla, sugar, butter, cranberries, and melty chocolate.

This easy Cookie Recipe is made with the same simple dough as Classic Shortbread Cookies, but with chopped cranberries and mini chocolate chips added to change up the taste and texture.

Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies in stack

CRANBERRY CHIP SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Shortbread Cookies recipes are perfect for the holiday season. With just a few ingredients, you can make classic, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth cookies. It’s a great recipe to add to your list of holiday baking.

Because of shortbread’s simple vanilla taste, it’s a great base to add different mix-ins and flavors. Scottish Shortbread Cookies, Whipped Shortbread Cookies, and these Cranberry Cookies all have the same basic dough but come out with a completely different taste from some easy changes.

For this Easy Shortbread, the only change to the recipe is adding cranberries and mini chocolate chips to the dough. The sweet, melty chocolate chips pair perfectly with the slightly bitter cranberries for a genuinely fantastic taste that you won’t be able to get enough of. 

Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies on baking sheet before baking

TIPS FOR MAKING SHORTBREAD COOKIES

  • Prep: Preheat the oven and line your baking sheet with parchment paper, so the cookies don’t stick.
  • Dough: Put the butter and powdered sugar in a stand mixer or use an electric mixer to cream them together. Whip the butter and sugar together on high speed for 1-2 minutes until light and airy. Add the vanilla, then lower the speed. Mix in the flour and cornstarch to finish the dough. Don’t overmix the dough. Shortbread can be dense, so it’s essential to keep the airiness made by whipping the butter and sugar.
  • Mix-ins: Stir the chocolate chips and cranberries into the rest of the ingredients.
  • Shape: Roll the dough into a 2-inch log. Wrap it in plastic wrap and leave the dough in the fridge for a half-hour. Take the dough from the refrigerator and cut it into ½ inch thick circles. Place them on the cookie sheet.
  • Bake: Cook this recipe for 20-22 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet.

SIMILAR COOKIE RECIPES

MAKE-AHEAD CRANBERRY CHIP SHORTBREAD COOKIES

Holiday baking can be a lot of fun, but if you have too many recipes you want to make, it can become stressful instead. A great solution is making the cookies ahead of time and freezing them. You can make this recipe and as many other cookies as you want several months ahead of time. Then just defrost and reheat them for the holiday season.

  • Prepare the cookie dough, and bake the cookies according to the regular recipe.
  • Once the buttery cookies are cooled to room temperature, put them in the freezer on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
  • Flash freeze them for an hour. Once they’re frozen solid and won’t stick together, you can transfer the cookies to an airtight container and put them back in the freezer. They’ll stay good for up to 3 months.
  • Leave the shortbread uncovered at room temperature to thaw out. You can eat them at room temperature or heat them for a few minutes in the oven.

top-down view of Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies on cookie sheet

VARIATIONS ON CRANBERRY CHIP SHORTBREAD COOKIES

  • Chocolate: Replace half of the all-purpose flour with unsweetened cocoa powder to make a chocolate shortbread biscuit. Adding some extra chocolate taste will go wonderfully with the tart taste of the cranberries.
  • Mix-ins: There are lots of ways you can change up the mix-ins or just add more to the cranberries and chocolate chips in the cookies. For some crunch, add chopped almonds, pistachios, or walnuts. You can also change the chocolate chips and use dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate.
  • Flavor additions: To experiment with the flavor, try mixing in a teaspoon or so of vanilla, almond extract, or lemon juice to the cookie dough.
  • Sugar: For a darker, sweeter flavor in your Shortbread recipe, use half brown sugar and half confectioner’s sugar.
  • Gluten-free: Gluten-free Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies are easy to make by just replacing the all-purpose flour with almond flour, oat flour, or another gluten-free alternative.

MORE CLASSIC HOLIDAY DESSERTS

HOW TO STORE CRANBERRY CHIP SHORTBREAD COOKIES

  • Serve: After baking, you can keep Cranberry Shortbread Cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. Put a paper towel in the bottom of the container to soak up moisture if you’re in a more humid environment.
  • Store: Keep Shortbread in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a month.
  • Freeze: To keep them even longer store your Shortbread Cookies in the freezer for up to 3 months.

top-down view of Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies in stack

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Dinner, then Dessert

Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies

Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies are an excellent, old fashioned Christmas cookie. Made with vanilla, sugar, butter, cranberries, and melty chocolate.
Yield 24 Cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder
Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies in stack
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup cranberries , chopped

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325 and line a half sheet pan with parchment paper.
  • Add butter and sugar to a stand mixer and cream on high speed for 1-2 minutes until light and fluffy.
  • Add in the vanilla extract.
  • Lower speed to the lowest setting and add in the flour slowly until just combined.
  • Stir in the chocolate chips and cranberries.
  • Roll the mixture into a 2-inch wide log and wrap with plastic wrap.
  • Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  • Cut into ½ thick slices and bake for 20 minutes.
  • Cool completely before removing from baking sheet.

Nutrition

Calories: 137kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 20mg | Sodium: 2mg | Potassium: 27mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 236IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 1mg
Keyword: Cranberry Chip Shortbread Cookies

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About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Love cranberries and love the addition in theses cookies. I habe all the ingredients.. cant wait to make it.

    Reply

  2. Shortbread is my favorite cookies, and am always on the look for different variations, so am in! I have to make this! Looks phenomenal ????

    Reply

  3. What a lovely recipe. These cookies look fantastic. Love how easy they are to make. I must give them a try. Thanks for the recipe!

    Reply

  4. What beautiful cookies. I love cranberries and putting them into cookies along with chocolate chips is a winning idea!

    Reply

  5. Love how simple these cookies are. Made them for the family and everyone loved them. Definitely a keeper.

    Reply

  6. Very easy. I did a quick slice and bake when my dinner guests arrived and they love the fresh cookies for dessert, I worried about slicing the dough 1/2” thick bit it spreads out into a perfect cookie. I will make again.

    Reply