CHEWY CRANBERRY ORANGE COOKIES

CHEWY CRANBERRY ORANGE COOKIES image

Yield 4 dozen

Number Of Ingredients 9

1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter
3/4 cup sugar
grated peel of 1 medium to large orange (or 2-3tsp orange marmalade)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
2 cups dried cranberries; or a mixture of dried cranberries and toasted chopped walnuts or pecans or white chocolate chips

Steps:

1) Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease two baking sheets, or line them with parchment. 2) In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, orange peel, vanilla, baking powder, and salt. 3) Beat in the egg. The mixture may look slightly curdled; that's OK. 4) Add the flour and dried cranberries (or cranberries and nuts), stirring until well combined. 5) Drop the dough by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving about 1 1/2" between them. A level teaspoon cookie scoop works very well here; dough balls will be about 1 1/4" in diameter. Using the flat bottom of a glass dipped in sugar, flatten the cookies slightly, to a scant 1/2" thick. 6) Bake the cookies for 6 to 7 minutes, until they're barely set, and a light golden brown around the edges. Don't over-bake; if you do, the cookies will be hard, not soft and chewy. Gently lift one of the cookies and look at the bottom; if you've used parchment, it shouldn't be brown. If you're baking on a dark cookie sheet without parchment, it should be light (not dark) brown. 7) Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool them right on the pan. If you need a pan to bake the remainder of the cookies, give the cookies about 5 minutes to set before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.