White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Cookies

These incredibly soft and buttery, salty and sweet white chocolate cranberry pistachio cookies will be your new favorite. There is so much texture in every bite of these holiday cookies!

These cookies are a texture lover’s paradise. Between the soft dough, crunchy pistachios, and chewy dried cranberries– I could eat these salty sweet cookies for the rest of my life and be content. Really. There is something different in each bite!

Truth is, I’ve been making these cookies for the past 2 years. I simply take my white chocolate cranberry cookies and add pistachios. The salty pistachios turn that incredible cookie into an extraordinary cookie. I had to share the recipe with you this year.

Irresistible cookie tower. ↓ ↓

The base of this cookie recipe is my ultra soft, ultra loved-by-everyone THE chocolate chip cookie. It’s a classic cookie recipe, creaming butter and sugars together to get that luxuriously creamy cookie dough. Besides all the glorious chunks of add-ins, butter is the star of the show in this recipe. Which brings me to another edition of:

Food Science // Nerd Alert 

Butter is where most cookie recipes begin and it has several jobs in both the mixing bowl and the oven. First, it keeps cookies tender. If you left butter out of a cookie recipe calling for it, you’d likely end up with a tough, dense, and flavorless cookie. Speaking of flavor, butter is where a ton of this cookie’s flavor comes from. Subbing butter with a less flavorful fat such as shortening or margarine will yield some pretty lousy, bland cookies. As cookies bake, the milk proteins inside the butter begin to brown– giving the cookies nutty, butterscotch-y notes of flavor. I love butterscotch-y.

The soft, airy centers come from– you guessed it– the butter! How butter is mixed into cookie dough affects a cookie’s texture. In my Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipe, I use melted butter. Melted butter is what makes them so insanely dense and fudge-like, almost tasting (and looking!) like straight-up cookie dough. But with these cookies, I chose to cream the butter with the sugars. During this creaming process, air is incorporated into the mix which, in turn, helps leaven the cookies as they bake. The cookies rise up, the centers stay soft, and the edges slightly crisp. Cookie perfection.

In short, butter = everything.

In addition to butter, another powerhouse ingredient I use is cornstarch. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’re already familiar with my love of cornstarch in cookies. You see, cornstarch makes the cookie dough thicker– yes, the cookie dough actually thickens as it chills.* Thicker, more sturdy cookie dough bakes into thicker, more compact cookies. Today’s cookies are anything but frail and dainty!

I’m beginning to bore myself. Are you still reading? I’m almost done, I promise.

*Chilling! One of the most important steps in this cookie recipe. Chilling allows the cookie dough to thicken and the flavors to enhance. That nutty, butterscotch-y-ness I mentioned above? It will blow your mind if you let this cookie dough chill. The minimum is 2 hours, but I always let it chill overnight. I know, it’s such a drag to wait that long for cookies. But the results are undeniably worth it.

Everything works so wonderfully together in these cookies. Tart cranberries paired with sweet white chocolate morsels. Salty pistachios paired with a brown sugar, buttery cookie dough. Delightfully crisp edges, soft centers, and chunks in every bite. There’s a reason I make these cookies so often– they’re simply the best.

You’re going to love them.

White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Cookies

Yield: about 2 dozen

Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

These incredibly soft and buttery, salty and sweet white chocolate cranberry pistachio cookies will be your new favorite. There is so much texture in every bite of these holiday cookies!

Print Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature


• 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar (I use light)


• 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar


• 1 large egg, at room temperature¹


• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract


• 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (measured correctly)


• 2 teaspoons cornstarch (aka cornflour)


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 3/4 cup (135g) white chocolate morsels or chopped white chocolate


• 3/4 cup (75g) dried cranberries


• 1/2 cup (62g) salted pistachios, shells removed

Directions:

1. In a large bowl using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute on medium speed in a large bowl until completely smooth and creamy. Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix on medium high speed until fluffy and light in color. Beat in egg and vanilla on high speed. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.


2. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt together until combined. On low speed, slowly mix into the wet ingredients until combined. The cookie dough will be quite thick. Add the white chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and pistachios, mix on low for about 5-10 seconds until evenly disbursed. Cover dough tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days. Chilling is mandatory for this cookie dough.


3. Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes-- if the cookie dough chilled longer than 2 hours, let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. This makes the cookie dough easier to scoop and roll. Preheat oven to 350F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.


4. Once chilled, the dough will be slightly crumbly, but will come together if you work the dough with your hands as you roll into individual balls. Scoop and roll balls of dough, about 1 Tablespoon of dough each, into balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. They will look extremely soft when you remove them from the oven. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet. If the cookies are too puffy, try gently pressing down on them with the back of a spoon. They will slightly deflate as you let them cool. Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.


5. Make ahead tip: Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week. Baked cookies freeze well - up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well - up to three months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw.

Recipe Notes:

1. Room temperature egg- always a good thing when a recipe calls for room temperature or melted butter. Room temperature eggs disperse more evenly into the creamed butter/sugar mixture. Simply set our your egg when you set out the butter. Or let sit in a cup of warm water for 10 minutes.

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