Want to prepare some more healthy treats for the holidays or your upcoming cookie exchange? Or how about preparing some tasty treats for your neighbors this Christmas?
Today we are joining Domestic by Design in sharing a few favorite holiday treats that have been adapted to make them more healthy and nutritious! Check out the fun Real Food Cookie Exchange Carnival and share your favorite recipes! Since cookies are a special treat at our house, we mainly stick with unbleached white flour (or half and half with sprouted wheat), as it gives more tasty, fluffy results. But you can certainly use whole wheat flour if desired. Other than that, I like to use coconut oil and natural sweeteners to give them a more nutritious nature. Here is one of our new favorites!
These cranberry cookies are fabulous! They are soft, rich and flavorful with a splash of red color to make them a perfect holiday treat.
Cranberry Orange Coconut Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter or coconut oil, softened (half butter & half coconut oil works best!)
- 1 1/2 cups rapadura/sucanat (you can certainly cut back to about 1 cup if using orange juice concentrate or dried cranberries)
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons grated orange zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons orange juice or orange juice concentrate
- 2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour or whole wheat flour (increase baking soda to 1.5 teaspoons)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups chopped cranberries, fresh or dried (fresh is preferred)
- 3/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut flakes
Directions:
1. In a large bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat butter/coconut oil, sweetener, orange peel, orange juice, and vanilla until smooth and light.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter mixture, stir to mix, then beat on low speed until dough comes together, about 1-2 minutes. You may have to add 1 more Tablespoon water or orange juice to get it to come together. Mix in cranberries and coconut flakes.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on an greased baking sheets.
4. Bake in a 350° degrees until cookie edges just begin to brown, 12-15 minutes (shorter baking time will yield a chewier cookie; longer baking time will yield a crispier cookie). If baking two sheets at once in one oven, switch their positions halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then use a wide spatula to transfer to racks to cool completely.
Yield: 3-4 dozen.
Some of our other favorite holiday treats, that would work beautifully on a cookie platter for your neighbors:
Healthy Homemade Fudge
Healthy Peanut Brittle
Gingersnap Cookies
Happy holiday baking!
All your recipes are sooo good! A lot more flavor then others I have tried. I would love a cook book by you.
Do you store coconut oil in the refrigerator, or pantry?
Thank you!
I didn’t have any cranberries at home, and the shop was out, so I had to improvise with raspberries. I’ve gotta say, the raspberry and orange mix was really good!! Cranberry and orange has always been a winner with me, but I’m pretty happy with this as an alternative.
Oh, these looks fantabulous! Orange-cranberry is one of my absolute favorite-est flavor combinations!
I made these today! Thank you so much for the recipe… they are amazing.
I made these today. I think they are my new favorite cookie. Yum! Thanks for sharing. I wanted to point out it looks like you forgot to mention when to put the egg in. I assumed it was before the dry ingredients. I used whole wheat flour and they were great!
I have a question about coconut oil. I just purchased some and have been using it more and more things. I store it in the garage so it’s very hard. For pies I leave as is and for other things, I melt it. But as soon as I add the cold ingredients, it turns to icky hard lumps that stay that way and end up in the finished product! And my pies also….little hard lumps all throughout! Any idea what I’m doing wrong? I really want to use coconut oil…besides, I have two gallons of it!
This has happened occasionally to me as well. The best thing to do is make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. It will melt when you bake it in a pie form or just make sure you are cutting it in well enough. I haven’t had success making pies with it…I use butter. Best way to use it is to melt it for baking.
These look lovely. Thanks for sharing this recipe. I’ll be making them for certain!
I recently made a granola with cranberries and orange zest…it’s such a great combination.
looks delicious.. yummmmmmm!
Your cookies look delicious. Cranberry, orange, and coconut seem like a wonderful combination
I love the flavor combination and the fact that they’re such a season-friendly cookie.
I’d love to make them! Thanks for all the flour tips.
They look delicious! Can’t wait to make them!
These sound wonderful! Thank you for sharing.
I’m curious–do you buy your rapadura/sacanat in bulk? Do you get it local or is there an online source that sells it for a reasonable price?
Yes, I buy it in bulk through Azure Standard or my local food co-op.
Have you guys tried the white whole wheat? It’s still 100% whole wheat but it’s ground from hard white winter wheat rather than hard red spring wheat. This is what King Arthur Flour says about it:
“Hard white wheat has a high protein content and thus is good at producing gluten, the elastic component of a dough that can capture and hold carbon dioxide (the gas produced by yeast that raises your dough). Unlike red wheat, white wheat lacks some of the pigmentation in the bran layer of the wheat berry; since that pigment carries an astringent flavor, white wheat is lighter in both color and flavor. It is grown primarily in Kansas and is a winter wheat crop.”
I use it as a total replacement for white flour in all my baked goods. They’re not too dense (although not as fluffy and spongy as white flour) but much more flavorful and not bitter like you might get when you use normal whole wheat.
Good suggestion! I think I will try these for my MOPS cookie exchange tomorrow
Yes, I use white whole wheat (white spring wheat) all the time for my baking. IT does work much better! Cookies are my exception because nothing gives it the light fluffy texture than white flour.
Wow these look fantastic! I agree that it is really difficult to make a great cookie without white flour. I never give up trying, though!