Saturday, November 12, 2016

Festive Orange Cranberry Butter Cookies

Hello, everybody! I have a delicious recipe for you that was almost ruined by my multi-tasking (badly) brain. But it was saved in the end and it was delicious!
 So, the ingredients for the recipe are:
1 cup butter
2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup cranberries, dried
2 TSP orange zest
2 TBS orange juice
drip of almond extract
 So, let me explain what happened to this batch. I follow the instructions (I'll put them below), chill the dough, put it in the oven, and then after about 7 minutes check on it and see.... DISASTER. The cookies were swimming in a POOL OF MELTED BUTTER. Something had gone very, very wrong.
But how?? I had checked and double checked the ingredients!
Then I realized... one cup butter. One pound butter. One package is one pound. One cup is two sticks. I had doubled the butter! So, I pulled the half-baked cookies out, drained off the butter, scraped them into a bowl, added more flour and sugar... and they're edible! But there you go... too many kids, cats, dog, husband, and music in the kitchen. My brain was *POOF*.
                                         
So, a cup of dried cranberries and 1/4 cup of the sugar in a blender or food processor and pulse...
                                               
Until combined, and the cranberries are in bits. Add the orange zest.
                                            
Meanwhile, cut the butter (only one cup, not one pound!!) into the flour and sugar mixture.
                                                  
Mix butter with your hands until it looks like dough. Add in the cranberries, orange, juice, and a dribble of almond flavoring. (I'm not a fan of almond flavoring but someone told me butter cookies just aren't butter cookies without it. Hmmmm.... I'm tempted to omit next time.)
                                                
Shape into a log and cover with foil. Chill until hardened. You'll thank me later.
                                                 
Take a break and gaze at your new kittens. Adorable!
                                               
Open package from friend and discover awesome Fall wreath she made! Thank you, Christalee!
Okay, skip the part where you have to drain off the melted butter and slice the dough into rounds. Put in the preheated oven at 325F and cook for 12 minutes. These don't have any baking powder, eggs or baking soda so do not overcook! You'll end up with little rocks.
 MMMMMMM, tea and butter cookies!
 We just got back from the Veterans Day parade (a few of my kids were on the Boy Scouts float, and one lost a tooth, hahaha) so we're all ready to have some tea and cookies!

That's all for now, but be sure to stop by my facebook author pages at Mary Jane Hathaway or Virginia Carmichael, or my personal blog at The Things That Last! Until next time!



5 comments:

  1. These look Christmas-ready! Love them, and I love the disaster and how you fixed it, LOL! Waste not, want not!

    Good for you! I re-do disasters all the time and it's kind of fun to meet the challenge. Brava!

    Love the wreath. It's absolutely charming and I think I should go and buy a bunch of fall crafty things while they're on sale so we can do things like this for the farm stand next year... How fun would that be, to go with our decorative baskets???

    Way fun, I submit! :)

    Okay, I'm off to edit/revise and it's almost coffee time... Thank you for this wonderful and refreshing holiday idea!

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    1. We decorate our little free library every season and right now it's everything FALL. So cute! Someone donated a whole set of Saddle Club books so the library is stocked!

      I'm off to bed. When I start staring and not typing... time to sleep!

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  2. How funny about the butter! But what a great way to save the recipe! I'm impressed. :)

    These sounds so good! I love butter cookies. Will definitely make these! I really love the idea of blending up the cranberries so they'll be chopped. No big huge chunks. Nice!

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  3. Well, I figured if I'd doubled the butter, I could just double the flour and sugar, right? LOL. It worked well enough. :)

    The first batch had much smaller pieces but I'd already washed the Ninja and I didn't want to wash it again. I'm lazy! So I just put in whole cranberries the second time.

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  4. Okay, I MUST try these, MJ. Actually, I'm thinking that you must have read my mind, because I just last week I was contemplating finding a recipe for something with cranberries and orange zest and here it is. And one can never go wrong with butter cookies. Of course, you had to go and mention having them with tea, so that means I'm all over these. Hmm...maybe for my friend's annual cookie swap. Hmm...

    Thanks, MJ!

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