Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

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Day 11
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 in our 12 days 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.

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Cranberry Pecan Filled Cookies

  • Author: Glen­da Embree
  • Prep Time: 2 hours
  • Cook Time: 10 min
  • Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
  • Yield: 3 dozen 1x
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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.
  • 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

THE GIVEAWAY

ENTER THE 12 Days of Christmas Cookies

KITCHENAID MIXER GIVEAWAY

One lucky win­ner will receive a KitchenAid Arti­san Series 5‑Qt Stand Mix­er with Pour­ing Shield!

FEATURES OF THE KITCHENAID ARTISAN SERIES STAND MIXER

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  • 10-speed slide con­trol ranges from a very fast whip to a very slow stir
  • Includes Flat Beat­er, Dough Hook and Wire Whip
  • Pow­er Hub for Addi­tion­al Attachments
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  • 5‑Qt. stain­less steel bowl with com­fort­able han­dle offers enough capac­i­ty to mix dough for 9 dozen cook­ies or 4 loaves of bread in a sin­gle batch.
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  • Includes coat­ed flat beat­er, coat­ed dough hook, 6‑wire whip and 1‑piece pour­ing shield. The flat beat­er and dough hook are dishwasher-safe.

Offi­cial Rules and Con­di­tions for the 12 Days of Christ­mas Cook­ies Give­away:

  • One win­ner will be receive a KitchenAid Arti­san Series 5‑Qt. Stand Mix­er with Pour­ing Shield (Val­ue $279.00 USD). 
  • Open to US res­i­dents adults 18+. 
  • One (1) win­ner will be chosen. 
  • Prize must be claimed with­in 48 hours of announce­ment or a new win­ner will be drawn. 
  • Prize will be deliv­ered via Amazon. 
  • All entries will be verified. 
  • This give­away is in no way asso­ci­at­ed with Face­book, Pin­ter­est, Twit­ter, Insta­gram, Raf­fle­copter, Ama­zon, KitchenAid or any oth­er enti­ty unless oth­er­wise specified. 
  • Give­away ends Decem­ber 12th, 2019 at midnight. 
  • Blog­gers are not respon­si­ble for the deliv­ery of the prize. 

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