Cranberry Chocolate Chippers

These are the cookies I was talking about last Thursday. When I bake cookies I usually make a double batch, bake about a pan full, scoop the rest into cookie dough blobs and freeze them for later. I'm not sure I'm gonna have many of these later though. I keep snatching bites out of my freezer. mmmmmm.....

.5 C each, butter, brown sugar, sugar
1 egg
zest of 1 orange
.5 tsp vanilla
1 C flour*
.5 tsp baking soda
.5 C nuts, chopped**
1.5 C fresh cranberries chopped***
1 C Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips****


From here, it's pretty typical  cookie protocol. Cream the sugar and the butter. Mix in the egg, orange zest, and vanilla. Add the flour and baking soda mix em up. Add the goodies: nuts, cranberries, chocolate chips. scoop onto a pan. Bake at 350 (Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes. Let them cool on the pan for a few minutes, then move to a wire rack to finish up. Contemplate sharing with your neighbors. Eat them too fast to follow through. Swear you'll do it next time...


*I use whole wheat flour and I leave the amount the same on these cookies. The dough is pretty wet if you use all purpose flour, so you might want to add a wee bit, but this is what the recipe says. Also I really love whole wheat flour. I think it makes a better tasting cookie, plus it's better for you. Not that these are good for you. They are cookies, ok?


** I never know whether to chop nuts before or after I measure them, and it usually isn't all that critical, so I just dump a bunch out on my cutting board and go to town. Or if I dont' have nuts I don't worry about it. These ones didnt' have them, but they are good with too. Obviously. Or it wouldn't be in the recipe.


***Yet again, I usually just chop a bunch of these. You can buy the fresh berries starting around Thanksgiving and I think some stores will still carry them now, but I usually just go buy a few bags to stash in my freezer. I dump about half a bag in my mini food processor for this recipe. If you are doing nuts and cranberries I don't much see the point of messing up your cutting board. Chop your nuts in the food processor too. Probably separately though. I don't have a big enough food processor to find out, but I assume if you did them together you'd completely pulverize the cranberries. That might not be bad, but it might make your cookies a funky color

**** Just dump some in. This is how I cook, ok?