I’ve been Christmas baking with my Mother-in-law every year for a very long time now, my husband and I met in high school, so we’ve been baking together for years. She’s taught me so many baking tips and tricks over the years and I am so excited to share them and continue our tradition by teaching our little ones.

Our oldest, who is now three-and-a-half, started baking with me before he was two and has a love for baking that we hope to nurture as he gets older. Since we often bake together, I like to keep to recipes that simple and straight forward so there’s no fuss and he can really help me with all the steps. It’s so amazing to see him gaining confidence in the kitchen.

This year we decided to try a twist on the traditional sugar cookie, by adding orange zest and dried cranberries. We also used fresh, free range, Ontario-laid Conestoga Farms Eggs (which are eggs  laid by Ontario-raised laying hens that live on open concept farms, with access to outdoor pastures) in this recipe and after baking and cooking these quality eggs a few times now I am really noticing a difference.

These cookies were a huge hit with our family and we hope they will be with yours as well.

Cranberry Orange Christmas Sugar Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups of flour
• ½  tsp salt
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 cup of butter, softened (I use salted)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 medium fresh, free range, Ontario-laid Conestoga Farms Egg
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp Fresh Orange Zest
• ½ cup of dried cranberries
• ¼ cup icing sugar (for decorating)

DIRECTIONS

1. Pre-heat the over to 350 degrees F.
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking powder until well combined.
4. Using a mixer, cream sugar and butter then add egg and vanilla.
5. Mix in the orange zest and cranberries.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture slowly until it forms a dough.
7. Turn out the dough, forming it into a ball.
8. On a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough about ¼ inch thick and use Christmas cookie cutters to cut out your cookies (we used Christmas trees and stars).
9. Place the cut-out cookies on your lined baking sheets, keep them spaced out.
10. Bake for 15 minutes, or until firm and lightly browned on the bottom.
11. Let cookies cool on the baking sheets for about 5min and then transfer them on to a cooling rack. Once the cookies have cooled, dust them with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Xo

Vanessa