Cranberry Pistachio Cookies

These are pretty, delicate little cookies with a soft, buttery texture that literally melts in your mouth. They are also bursting with the flavors of pistachios, cranberries, orange, and vanilla - flavors that don't have to be relegated to the holiday season but somehow seem to belong there.

This is technically a whipped shortbread cookie which means the dough is made primarily of sugar, butter, and flour. In whipped shortbread cookies, sugar, and butter are creamed together into a mixture that's light and fluffy before adding the flour.

That's what's happening here but I've added an egg and an egg yolk and less flour in proportion to the amount of butter than what you'd typically find in shortbread to create a cookie that is soft and tender rather than crisp.

Ingredients needed to prepare this recipe

• Sugar.
• Roasted, salted, shelled pistachios. I know some of you are going to be raising your eyebrows at the amount of salt in these cookies starting with salted pistachios. But, salt is essential in these cookies. Salt brings out the flavor of other ingredients and in these cookies, it intensifies the buttery, nutty flavor of the cookies and the bright, tart, fruity flavor of the cranberry-orange sauce.
• Salt and pepper. Um... pepper? A little bit of ground black pepper in the cranberry orange sauce might sound strange, but it's magical. If you don't believe me, take a look at the comments from people who've made this strawberry rhubarb jam recipe that also includes a bit of black pepper. Black pepper enhances the natural sweetness of fruit and adds a subtle complexity that is completely delicious.
• Vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract. Vanilla bean paste can be used interchangeably with vanilla extract but has a more intense vanilla flavor. It has a sweet, syrupy consistency that's flecked with vanilla beans so you get all that vanilla bean flavor without having to scrape the seeds from a vanilla bean.
• Cranberries. Fresh or frozen cranberries work equally well to make the cranberry orange sauce that tops the pistachio cookies.
• One navel orange. To make the cranberry-orange sauce an entire orange, peel and all, is ground up and cooked with cranberries and sugar until the mixture turns into a delicious sweet-tart jam. Orange and cranberry is a delicious flavor combination and adds a fruity sweet-tart burst to every bite of these cookies.
• One whole egg + one egg yolk. Why the extra yolk? In contrast to these soft and chewy brown sugar cookies that contain only egg whites, I wanted the consistency of these pistachio cookies to be rich and hearty enough to stand up to the pistachios and cranberry sauce and that extra egg yolk did the trick.
• Butter. These are a kind of shortbread cookie which means they contain a lot of butter. I like to use salted butter in these cookies. But, if you are sensitive to salt, you might want to choose unsalted butter.
• All-purpose flour.

Step-by-step photos and instructions

Cut the orange into pieces and chop it in a food processor, peel and all, until it's finely minced. Add it to a saucepan along with the cranberries and sugar.

Cook the mixture for 25-30 minutes, stirring frequently, until all the cranberries have burst and the mixture is the consistency of thick, chunky jam.

Stir in some salt and pepper and let it cool. The sauce can be prepared up to 5 days in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Add ½ cup of pistachios to a food processor and pulse until the pistachios are very finely chopped. You want the consistency to be almost ground but be careful to stop short of pulverizing them into a paste. Dump them into a mixing bowl.

Add another half cup of pistachios to the food processor and pulse until they are chopped into pieces that are small but larger than the first batch. Set these aside; they'll be used to sprinkle over the tops of the cookies.

Add the flour and salt to the bowl with the ground pistachio and stir with a wire whisk to combine.

Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until the mixture looks aerated, light, and creamy.

Add the whole egg, the egg yolk, and the vanilla and continue beating until the eggs are fully incorporated into the butter and sugar.

Add the flour and pistachio mixture to the bowl and mix on low speed just until everything is mixed together.

Scoop the dough into a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and as long as 3 days.

When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Shape the pistachio cookie dough into heaping tablespoon-size balls and then flatten them into chunky disks. Top each cookie with cranberry sauce, sprinkle with some of the chopped pistachios, and bake.

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet then remove them to a wire rack and let them cool completely while you mix up some simple vanilla icing.

Drizzle the cookies with vanilla icing then sprinkle with more chopped pistachios.

Make ahead and storage instructions

The cranberry orange sauce can be prepared up to 5 days in advance of baking these cookies. Keep it in a covered container in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. The sauce can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Allow it to defrost in the refrigerator for about 12 hours before using.

The pistachio shortbread dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months. Keep the dough tightly wrapped or in an airtight container to prevent it from drying out. If frozen, allow to defrost completely in the refrigerator before using.

Once baked, the cookies will keep well at room temperature for up to 48 hours. If you'd like to store them for longer than that, keep them in a covered container in the refrigerator where they will keep well for up to 4 days.

More holiday cookie recipes

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If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment, rate it, or take a picture and tag it #ofbatteranddough on Instagram. Happy baking!