Yes, today I have taken a trip away from chocolate to bring you something a little bit different. As I explained before, I am not a big fan of raisins, but if it is to be dried fruit give me cranberries, pineapple or dates! Cranberries was also chosen since we are on the eve of Valentine's.
Outside of the two factors, this cakey cookie offers hints of cinnamon and orange. The end result is one tasty cookie. Delicious with a healthy slant. I said no to thoughts of drizzling with white chocolate. So here you have it, healthy bits in this cookie and no chocolate. This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies.
Celebrity Factor Cookies
by flourtrader
Ingredients
1/3 cup plus 2 tbs orange juice
1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temp
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp grated orange peel
3/4 cup chopped unsalted pistachios
2 cups dried sweetened cranberries
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
Prepare cranberries by soaking in orange juice for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Also, butter 3 cookie sheets.
Sift together salt, flour, baking soda, cinnamon and baking powder in a medium size bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg, orange zest and vanilla extract to the butter sugar mixture. Beat for about 2 minutes until all is blended and evenly distributed.
Fold in the sifted ingredients with a wooden spoon. Once there are no dry streaks remaining, stir in the cranberries as well as the orange juice that they soaked in. Lastly, add the pistachios and mix until evenly distributed.
Then cover and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes. My butter was real soft, so I let the cookie batter cool for about 30 minutes to firm up. While the batter is chilling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Remove batter from fridge. Using a spoon or cookie scoop, drop batter by rounded teaspoon onto cookie sheet. Cookies should be spaced about 1 1/2 inches apart. Place cookies in oven and bake until outside edges have turned golden, about 10-15 minutes. Mine took about 12 minutes. Remove cookie sheet and let cookies cool on sheet about 5 minutes. Then transfer to rack to finish cooling.