Day 32, 68 to go: Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

Pink Cookies

I’ll have you know I am really taking the discipline of this 100 days of making seriously.  Several things transpired today to suck up a lot of time and prevent me from making anything.  But I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I hadn’t gotten anything made. (I did finish putting buttons on yesterday’s nightshirt, but that felt like “finishing”, not “making” to me.)

So, I made this batch of Cranberry White Chocolate cookies.  I got the recipe from my sister (Borg #8 of 8)  I love the juxtaposition of the tart cranberry flavor with the white chocolate chips, particularly because some of the chips get lightly toasted and have almost a burned butter flavor to them.  #8 makes them with Craisins, but I use fresh chopped cranberries.  She also uses only half as many chips.  What can I say? I like a flamboyant cookie. 

VBPT with pink spoonula and dough

I thought I should introduce the VBPT here just for the record.  This is my dearly beloved Kitchen-Aid mixer which was a gift from my second cousin Vince a few years ago. It was so sweet of him to accommodate my love of pink by choosing this particular model.  (Felicity says “hello” by the way.  She just climbed onto the table and plopped her very-loudly-purring-self down in front of me between my arms as I type.  Not to be outdone, Fergus just came by and swished my shin with his tail.  All of this cat love! Not that they were anywhere to be found all night.  But now that there is something to interfere with, here they are doing their duty as Hall Monitors.)  Anyhow, the VBPT stands for “Vinnie’s Big Pink Thing,” which was what this mixer got dubbed when it arrived.  The name stuck. “Kitchen-Aid” and/or “Stand Mixer” just didn’t have the same panache as naming conventions. 

Pink teakettle and tongs at rear.

What this has to do with anything is that I was making this dough in the VBPT, scraping the sides with this pink spoonula, grating orange rind into the dough with a pink-handled rasp grater and then using pink-handled teaspoons, dropped the dough onto the pink silicone cookie sheet liners.  I was just enjoying the pinkness of my kitchen—and the pinkness of this particular dough as the cranberries tend to tint it.  These cookies would be great with tea made in my pink tea kettle, but not at 1:30 am which is when I am typing this—with the help of Felicity who is still purring, though not as loudly.  She is sitting on my mouse which is on the hot pink mouse pad, of course!  

Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
Description:

 
Mom got this recipe from a lady at church. They are yummy.
Ingredients:

1 c margarine or softened butter
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract
2 c flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
2 c quick oats
1 c coarsely chopped fresh or frozen cranberries. (OR 1c craisins simmered in 50% diluted cranberry juice for 5 -7 minutes)
1 T grated orange peel
1 pkg (12 oz) white chocolate morsels. (Borg # 8 of 8 prefers only 6 oz)

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs. Mix in vanilla.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and soda, 
3. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture. 
4. Stir in oats, cranberries and orange peel. 
5. Stir in morsels.   
6. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2" apart on parchment paper covered airbake baking sheet. 
7. Cookies are done when tops are golden and some of the white chips are golden as well.
8. Immediately store in a waxed paper-lined airtight container with sheets of waxed paper or parchment to separate layers

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.