Sometimes, I get a strong urge to bake something delicious without a recipe or scales, and just see what happens. You often have to fold in a tiny bit more flour than you expect initially, until you try to arrive at a consistency that most closely resembles cookie dough before baking.
I made a couple variations of this recipe during the past week, and was very satisfied by the end result: These come out like cookie-inspired muffin-tops, loaded with dried cranberries, pecans, and chocolate chips.
We’ve been eating them for breakfast, and not feeling bad about it.
This recipe is designed to be a smaller batch, and makes about 14 cookies.
Decadent Pecan-Cranberry & Chocolate Chip Muffin-Top Cookies
Sometimes, I get a strong urge to bake something delicious without a recipe or scales, and just see what happens. You often have to fold in a tiny bit more flour than you expect initially, until you try to arrive at a consistency that most closely resembles cookie dough before baking. I made a couple variations of this recipe during the past week, and was very satisfied by the end result: These come out like cookie-inspired muffin-tops, loaded with dried cranberries, pecans, and chocolate chips. We’ve been eating them for breakfast, and not feeling bad about it.This recipe is designed to be a smaller batch, and makes about 14 cookies.
Ingredients
- 4 Tbsp salted butter, softened
- 3 Tbsp cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup white granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 whole egg, room temperature
- A tiny pinch (about 1/8 tsp) kosher salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ cup + 2 Tbsp flour, or more to achieve desired cookie-dough consistency
- ½ cup pecans, chopped
- ½ cup cranberries, finely diced
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips, finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Cream softened butter, cream cheese, and white and brown sugar together with the vanilla extract until fully combined.
- Add the whole egg and mix until fully combined and smooth.
- Mix the salt, baking soda, and flour together in a separate small bowl using a fork or whisk.
- Use a rubber spatula to incorporate the dry mixture into the wet mixture in two stages, checking for the consistency of the final dough.
- If you need to add a bit more flour, fold in some more flour until you arrive at your ideal cookie-dough consistency.
- *Make sure at this stage that your cranberries and nuts and chocolate chips are chopped down to a small size.
- *It is OK if you still have a tiny bit of visible flour in the dough, as you are about to add your cranberries, nuts, and chocolate chips and fold them in.
- Carefully fold in the cranberries, nuts, and chocolate chips into the batter, trying to evenly distribute them throughout the batter without over-stirring.
- Place small golf-ball sized balls of batter onto parchment paper on a sheet tray.
- Bake at 375 for about 12-14 minutes, or until your muffin-top cookies at golden brown and fully cooked.
- Allow to rest at room temperature before serving.
Notes
These cookies keep for a week or more when covered in an airtight container in the fridge. You can also freeze them and they taste great. Eat them with ice cream, or for breakfast.