Home » Baking Recipes

Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

by
Jump to Recipe·Print Recipe
cranberry pecan filled cookies

Cran­ber­ry Pecan Filled Cook­ies are soft, pil­lows of brown sug­ar cook­ie with a won­der­ful tart-sweet cran­ber­ry and pecan fill­ing. This is ALMOST not a new recipe for you guys. Ear­li­er, I made a date wal­nut ver­sion of this cook­ie, so I almost opt­ed not to share this one. But Cran­ber­ry Pecan Filled Cook­ies end up being a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent cook­ie, because of their very vibrant col­or and flavor. 

So, the “dif­fer­ent” part of this recipe is the jam. The cook­ie is exact­ly the same. The process is exact­ly the same. The two cook­ies could­n’t be more dif­fer­ent, though. And that’s because of the fill­ing. In both cas­es, I would hap­pi­ly eat the jam fill­ing out of a bowl with a spoon! Yum! This one is def­i­nite­ly worth sharing.

Print
clock clock iconcutlery cutlery iconflag flag iconfolder folder iconinstagram instagram iconpinterest pinterest iconfacebook facebook iconprint print iconsquares squares iconheart heart iconheart solid heart solid icon

Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

★★★★★

5 from 5 reviews
  • Author: Glen­da Embree
  • Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
  • Yield: 3 dozen 1x
Print Recipe

Description

A deli­cious twist on Date Nut Pin­wheels and a gor­geous Christ­mas Cookie!

Ingredients

Scale

For the Cook­ie Dough:

  • ¾ cup butter
  • 2 cups dark brown sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 4 cups unbleached all-pur­pose flour
  • 1 ½ tea­spoons salt
  • ½ tea­spoon bak­ing soda

For the Cran­ber­ry Filling:

  • 2 (12 oz) bags fresh cran­ber­ries (about 6 cups)
  • 2 ½ cups sugar
  • 2 table­spoon cornstarch
  • ½ cup fresh orange juice
  • 2 table­spoon orange zest
  • 1 tea­spoon cinnamon
  • ½ tea­spoon allspice
  • 3 cups chopped pecans

Instructions

For the Cookies:

  1. Cream the but­ter and brown sug­ar togeth­er.  I used my *Bosch stand mix­er, but these are eas­i­ly made by hand, too.)
  2. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
  3. Add the dry ingre­di­ents and mix until com­plete­ly incorporated.
  4. Divide the dough in half and place each half of the dough in a gal­lon zip-top bag, press it down flat and refrig­er­ate for 1 hour.  You want the dough to be chilled enough that you will be able to roll it out.
  5. While the dough is chill­ing make the cran­ber­ry pecan jam.

For the Jam:

  1. Place cran­ber­ries, sug­ar, corn­starch, cin­na­mon, all­spice, orange juice and orange zest in a medi­um saucepan.
  2. Stir togeth­er and bring to a boil over medi­um high heat, stir­ring frequently.
  3. Once mix­ture begins boil­ing, reduce the heat to medi­um and con­tin­ue boil­ing, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until the cran­ber­ries pop and the mix­ture thick­ens to the con­sis­ten­cy of jam. (Start count­ing sec­onds as you drag a spoon through the jam to the oth­er side of your pan. The trail you leave will begin to fill in, but you should be able to count 5 sec­onds before it clos­es completely.)
  4. Remove from the heat, stir in the pecans, and allow the mix­ture to cool to room tem­per­a­ture before using it to fill the pin­wheel dough.

Shap­ing the Cookies:

  1. When the dough is ful­ly chilled, roll each half out into a ¼‑inch thick rec­tan­gle, (each rec­tan­gle will be 9x12) on a sheet of parch­ment paper.
  2. Spread one half of the cooled jam across each of the rec­tan­gles of cook­ie dough, spread­ing it to the edges.
  3. Work­ing from the long edge, use the parch­ment paper to help you roll the dough and fill­ing into a log.  The log will be fair­ly big around, 3 ‑3.5 inch­es in diam­e­ter.  Because the fill­ing lay­er is thick, it will not be tight swirls like pin­wheel cook­ies.  Work from the long edge and tuck the dough into the jam as you get the roll start­ed.  Keep rolling, using the parch­ment to help you, tuck­ing as you go to keep the roll being formed.  In the end the roll will have a swirl of dough at the cen­ter, sur­round­ed by jam and then dough encas­ing it all.  It won’t form the tight pin­wheel like the cook­ies from the past that had just a tiny thin rib­bon of filling.
  4. Wrap and chill the logs for at least 6 hours.
  5. To bake, cut the logs into ⅓” slices and place on a cook­ie sheet leav­ing at least 2 inch­es in between, for spread­ing. (If you rotate the log a quar­ter turn after each slice you make, it will help the cook­ies stay round instead of going flat on one side.)
  6. Bake at 400° for 8–10 min­utes.  The cook­ie will be light­ly browned around the edges, but still soft and tender.
  7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the *bak­ing sheet for 3 min­utes, before remov­ing to cool­ing racks.
  • Prep Time: 2 hours
  • Cook Time: 10 min
  • Cat­e­go­ry: Desserts, Cook­ies
  • Method: Bak­ing
  • Cui­sine: Amer­i­can
Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

How to Make the Filling for Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

Start with fresh cran­ber­ries. Put them in a medi­um sauce pan and add sug­ar, corn­starch, cin­na­mon, all­spice, orange juice and orange zest.

Stir every­thing togeth­er and bring the entire mix­ture to a boil over medi­um high heat, stir­ring frequently.

Once the mix­ture is boil­ing, reduce the heat to medi­um and con­tin­ue cook­ing, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly, until the cran­ber­ries pop and the mix­ture thick­ens to the con­sis­ten­cy of jam. 

To see if the jam is done, start count­ing sec­onds as you drag a spoon through the jam to the oth­er side of your pan. The trail you leave will begin to fill in, but you should be able to count 5 sec­onds before it clos­es com­plete­ly, at the oth­er end. 

Remove the cran­ber­ry jam from the heat, stir in the pecans, and allow the mix­ture to cool to room tem­per­a­ture before using it to fill the pin­wheel dough. 

cranberry pecan filled cookies

Create the Roll for Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

Now, divide your chilled dough into two halves. Roll each of them into a 9x12 rec­tan­gle on top of a sheet of parch­ment paper.

Spread each rec­tan­gle with ½ of the jam.

Work from the long edge, of each rec­tan­gle. Use the parch­ment paper to help you roll the dough and fill­ing into a log.  The log will be fair­ly big around, 3 ‑3.5 inch­es in diam­e­ter.  Because the fill­ing lay­er is thick, it will not be tight swirls like pin­wheel cookies. 

In the end the roll will have a swirl of dough at the cen­ter, sur­round­ed by jam and then dough encas­ing it all.  It won’t form the tight pin­wheel like the cook­ies from the past that had just a tiny thin rib­bon of filling. 

cranberry pecan filled cookies

Wrap and chill the logs for at least 6 hours.

To bake the cook­ies, cut the logs into ⅓” slices and place the slices on a cook­ie sheet leav­ing at least 2 inch­es in between. (If you rotate the log a quar­ter turn after each slice you make, it will help the cook­ies stay round instead of going flat on one side.) 

Bake.  The cook­ies will be light­ly browned around the edges, but still soft and ten­der. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the *bak­ing sheet for 3 min­utes, before remov­ing to cool­ing racks. 

Enjoy, my friend! These are going to be gor­geous on your Christ­mas dessert table!

Here are three more DELISH cook­ie recipes from our 12 Days of Christ­mas Cook­ies blog­ger event.

And, if you’re look­ing for even more cook­ie recipes to add to your hol­i­day reper­toire, check out my recipe for these yum­my Melt-In-Your-Mouth Orange Short­bread Cook­ies.

orange shortbread cookies
https://glendaembree.com/orange-shortbread-cookies

7 thoughts on “Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies”

  4. Thank you so much for shar­ing this amaz­ing recipe! Will sure­ly have this again! It’s real­ly easy to make and it tast­ed so deli­cious! High­ly recommended!

    ★★★★★

    Reply

Leave a Comment

Recipe rating ★☆ ★☆ ★☆ ★☆ ★☆