Brandied Cranberry Cookies

My Leaning Tower of Cookies

Another baking day this weekend, I am having a lot of fun getting back in the kitchen, just baking cookies for Xmas. I love the smell of baked cookies in the house. Freshly baked warm buttery cookies for arfternoon tea, what could be better? I found this recipe by chance when visiting sitemeter, Simply Recipes was featured on the site and I gotta say, love this website. It has so many recipes of cookies to choose from. Love it!

Recipe from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/brandied_cranberry_white_chocolate_chip_cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup of brandy (to soak the cranberries in, then saving 1 1/4 teaspoons of it for later)
• 1 cup of dried cranberries
• 1 cup (two sticks) of butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup of lightly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of white chocolate chips

http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/butter_converter.html
Two sticks is equal to 226gram

Method

• Put the cranberries in a wide and shallow bowl, pour in brandy. Enough so they're are drowning. Just keep swimming my babies!!! Cover and place in the fridge for an hour or more. Afterwards, place a colander over a bowl and pour the cranberries and brandy through, putting the cranberries and the brandy they soaked in aside.
• Preheat oven to 375°F. Beat the crap out of the butter until it's light and fluffy. Add the sugars and beat again until light, fluffy and well incorporated.
• Add the eggs, vanilla extract, and add 1 1/4 teaspoons of the brandy that the cranberries soaked in (as for the rest, I suggest popping it in a glass and topping it off a bit for yourself). Beat well until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl midway through to ensure even mixing.
• Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, then add to the mixture a bit at a time, beating until just mixed. Fold in the brandy soaked cranberries and white chocolate chips. Let them chill out for 15 minutes in the fridge to commiserate their fate. 
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (a baker's best friend) and place rounded spoonfuls down on the sheet. Bake at 375°F for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for a minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

My kitchen smells lovely and I am slightly tipsy, it's all good! Gotta love this recipe :) Happy Holidays folks. Just keep on baking!! Errr, okay I nearly forgot to mention that I threw in some pistachio in the dough... heeehehe. That's also good for ya, puts hair on ya chest!