Cranberry Walnut Shortbread Cookies

Published: 08/25/2020 | Updated: 03/28/2024

These Cranberry Walnut Shortbread Cookies will quickly become one of your favorite cookie recipes! A delicious butter cookie filled with a sweet filling the blends perfectly!

I found this recipe for Cranberry Walnut Pinwheel cookies in an old Taste of Home magazine probably 20 years ago. It’s one of those recipes that caught my eye because it’s such a pretty cookie to look at, but for some reason I never made them.

Until a few years ago when I decided to try cranberry walnut shortbread bars and I’ve been kicking myself ever since for not making them sooner.

I am begging you… MAKE THIS COOKIE!!

It is hands down on of my favorite cookies ever and that’s saying a lot coming from someone who normally can’t get enough chocolate!

The cookie portion is such a tender and buttery shortbread that it honestly would be delicious on its own. But paired with the sweet yet tart filling, it is just perfection!

How to Make Cranberry Nut Shortbread Cookies

You want to make your shortbread dough first, because it needs time to chill. There are a lot of steps to this recipe, but a lot of the time involved is chilling time rather than hands-on time.

To make your cookie dough, in a stand mixer bowl, combine your softened butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add that to the creamed mixture and mix until combined.

Then refrigerate your prepared dough for an hour.

While that’s chilling, you can make your filling. The key to the filling is getting your cranberries and walnuts chopped finely enough that a thin cookie can hold them, but you don’t want them chopped so fine that they just become mush.

I use a small food chopper for this step and just give short quick pulses until they’re the size I want.

Then in a small bowl, combined your chopped cranberries, chopped walnuts and some orange zest. Set it aside until your dough is ready.

Once your dough is done chilling, roll it out onto a lightly floured surface. You should be able to roll it out into about a 10″ square.

Then in a small bowl, combine brown sugar and milk. Spread the brown sugar mixture over the entire square of dough.

Then spoon the cranberry walnut mixture over the dough leaving about a 1/2″ edge along the sides.

Roll the dough up tightly in a jelly roll style. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in fridge to chill for a few hours or even overnight.

When you’re ready to bake your cookies, remove jellyroll from fridge and slice dough crosswise. Your slices should be about 1/4″ apart. I usually get 40-45 cookies from this recipe.

Grease a cookie sheet really well. The brown sugar tends to caramelize on the bottoms of these cookies which tastes amazing but also means it has a tendency to stick to a pan. So really grease your baking sheets or use a silpat liner.

Place your cookies on the cookie sheet making sure to leave space between them. They really do puff up. Here’s how I spaced them before baking:

and take a look at how much they puffed up and how they’re pretty much touching after baking!

Once you have your cookie sheet filled with the cookie dough, bake at 375 for about 14-15 minutes.

The cookies should just slightly be brown on the bottom but the tops of the cookies should still look not done. If they look brown everywhere, that means you cooked them too long and the won’t be quite as tender.

Let sit on the cookie sheet for a minute or two and then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

A couple tips to making shortbread cookies:

You can use chopped pecans in place of the walnuts
Be sure you’re using fresh cranberries. I suppose dried cranberries wouldn’t be the worst thing, but the fresh is really the way to go with this recipe.
These cookies freeze really well too. I’ve made the recipe as stated up until the point where you roll it up jelly roll style. At that point, you can wrap really well in freezer paper and plastic wrap and store in the freezer until you’re ready to bake.
If you take these anywhere, make sure you also take copies of the recipe because everyone will want it!

Looking for more dessert recipes

Dessert recipes are often a favorite part of any meal. Whether you’re looking for something sweet or savory, there’s sure to be a recipe that hits the spot. Here are some delicious dessert recipes to get you started:

Print Recipe