Cranberry & Cinnamon Cookies

I've been baking from my to do list again and just as well really because the list keeps growing every time I get a new issue of the magazine. I'm on issue 37 of Baked & Delicious at the moment so still another 23 to go although the recipes and bakeware are starting to get a little repetitive now. Initially I only planned to get the first 15 issues but I was enjoying the magazines so carried on. Now I'm over halfway there I might as well finish the collection as long as I don't run out of space to store the bakeware, luckily silicone is squishy so it doesn't take up quite as much space.

These cookies were number 92 on the list and I made these after someone in my office asked why I hadn't bought in any baked goods recently. I didn't have a good answer for this other than the fact that I'd been working at home quite a bit, but now I'm in the office more regularly I'm going to bake for them more often. I mentioned my blog to them and they saw my to do list page so I asked them to suggest something. These weren't actually picked by the office but by me, I think they were overwhelmed at the number of things on the list! I just happened to have all the ingredients for these in the cupboard which was very handy. Although I did have to substitute light brown sugar for caster sugar because I didn't realise I'd run out until I'd weighed everything else out.

The cookies are very easy to make, just a 1:2:3 ratio of sugar, butter and plain flour, similar to shortbread but with the addition of dried cranberries and a teaspoon ground cinnamon. I accidentally picked up a packet of cinnamon dusted cranberries from the cupboard instead of the plain cranberries and was fearing a cinnamon overload. Fortunately the cookies still tasted good and I think I would purposefully use those cranberries again or add an extra teaspoon of cinnamon to the cookie dough. The dough was supposed to be rolled into a sausage shape and then chilled before slicing cookies off the end. I did this and ended up leaving it in the fridge for a few hours as I got busy with something else, but when I came to slice the dough it just crumbled.

In the end I had to roll it out and cut out the cookies using a 6cm cutter. I have no idea why the dough crumbled unless maybe it was too firm from being in the fridge. Anyway I ended up with about 18 cookies and took a dozen into the office and saved the rest for me and my boyfriend to share.