Cranberry Almond Jumbles

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving. If you hit the sales already today, did you find good deals? I love shopping but I don’t like crowds so Black Friday is not for me. My mom and I went a time or two a number of years ago, but we just went to get the freebie ornaments and things that they were giving out. I don’t think there is much of that any more. It’s now about getting the super deal. I’ve already done a lot of my Christmas shopping so now I can just get small things, stocking stuffers and things like that.

I have a lot of Christmas cookies that I can’t wait to share with you, and while this cookie wasn’t on my master sheet of Christmas cookies to make, it is certainly Christmas-y. This recipe uses a sugar cookie dough base with added mix-ins. I had made sugar cookie dough for another use and then I didn’t use it all up. Not wanting to be wasteful (and needing to make some treat to take to my dance teacher) I searched for recipes that used sugar cookie dough. I came across this recipe that took one entire recipe of sugar cookie dough and added two cups of mix-ins. I simply scaled it down for the amount of dough I had and ended up making some great cookies.

I substituted dried cranberries for the dried cherries that the original recipe called for, which was a good substitution. The almonds were lovely, and the dough already contained almond extract so that flavor came through very well. These are chewy but crunchy, and had that familiar sugar cookie flavor. I hadn’t really expected these to be so good, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Give these a try if you have some extra sugar cookie dough around this holiday season.

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
2-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, cream the powdered sugar, butter, extracts and egg. Add the flour, baking powder, and cream of tartar. Stir on low until combined. Stir in the dried cranberries and the sliced almonds.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cookies just begin to brown. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe adapted from Real Simple