In her first cookbook, Joy (the Baker) based her recipe for cranberry orange poppy seed cookies on her favorite slice-and-bake cookies from Smitten Kitchen and Dorie Greenspan. The incorporation of orange (or lemon) zest, poppy seeds, and dried cranberries gives this standard shortbread dough a jewel-like character and won lots of exclamations over how cute they were from my co-workers. Her gorgeous shortbread cookies are easy to make, only require a short rest in the fridge, look like cookies that required a lot of effort, and bake up beautifully.
Don't worry if your shortbread log isn't perfectly round. Mine certainly wasn't, even though I tried the trick of rolling it into a taut cylinder with parchment paper. If you are feeling perfectionist, once you roll it into a somewhat round-ish log, place the dough cylinder into a cardboard paper towel tube and then refrigerate it. The cardboard tube will help mold the dough into shape.
Cranberry Orange Poppy Seed Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened
- ⅔ cup powdered sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons orange zest or lemon zest
- ¾ cup dried cranberries
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Instructions
- Whisk the flour and salt together in a small bowl.
- In a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until they become fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl.
- Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and beat on low until fully incorporated, about 2 more minutes. Scrape down the bowl as necessary to enable incorporation.
- Dump in the flour and salt, zest, cranberries, and poppy seeds. Beat at low speed until not quite combined. Stop the mixer and use a spatula to fold everything together until incorporated.
- Divide the dough in half. Place each half on a separate sheet of wax or parchment paper. Gently roll or pat each into a 1-inch diameter log (the wax paper will help you do this). Wrap with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until fully chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, ensuring one oven rack is in the middle and the other is in the upper third. Line your cookie sheet pan(s) with parchment paper.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and it's protective plastic wrap, then slice the dough into ½-inch-thick rounds*. Place them 1-inch apart on the cookie sheet(s).
- Bake for 11-15 minutes, until barely golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on the cookie sheet on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes.
