About a year ago, in the Spring, Levi got the all-clear from his doctor to give dairy a try again. One of his first stops was to the local Walmart where they were blowing out leftover chocolate bunnies and he got himself four white chocolate bunnies. Insert barfy emoji here. Sorry Levi.
White chocolate makes me laugh. It’s not even real chocolate. To me it doesn’t really have that nice of a flavour but I know Levi goes crazy for it, and a lot of other people can’t help but go nuts for the white chocolate – cranberry combo, so who am I to get in the way of that.
Despite my making fun of white chocolate to Levi and questioning his tastes, he grinned and tore into the wrapper on his first white chocolate bunny, took a giant bite out of the ear and made a face. I guess it just wasn’t what he remembered it to be from his childhood. A friend tried it too and said maybe it wasn’t a good quality white chocolate bunny. Who really knows? It is a ‘confection’ after all.
You’d think, after that kind of disappointing experience with white chocolate, Levi would give the stuff up. No, it’s still one of his favorite types of chocolate and so I humoured him and made these cookies. I actually don’t mind the white chocolate – cranberry collaboration (hello, Cranberry Bliss Bars from Starbucks) but these cookies are like a little taste that comes together super easily without all the extra steps of the Cranberry Bliss Bars. (PS, I have a recipe for the Cranberry Bliss Bars that I’ll be sharing later on.)
Now, on to the recipe at hand.
You can make these dairy free with some substitutions. Use dairy-free margarine (like Earth Balance) in place of regular margarine. Substitute the regular white chocolate chips with a dairy-free variety. I have a hard time finding the dairy-free ones locally but I have seen them on Amazon (affiliate link).
- 1 cup margarine baking squares, softened (or non-dairy margarine like Earth Balance brand)
- 1½ cups brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs, preferably pastured and organic
- 1 teaspoon quality vanilla extract
- 2 cups superfine brown rice flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (or guar gum)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 450 g pkg white chocolate chips
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, cream together margarine and brown sugar. Add eggs in, one at a time, mixing to combine before adding the next one. Add vanilla.
- In another bowl, sift together brown rice flour, cornstarch, xanthan (or guar) gum, baking soda, and salt. Add to the wet ingredients and mix well.
- Fold in white chocolate chips and dried cranberries.
- Drop by teaspoonfuls to the prepared baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until just barely golden brown. Do not overbake. Remove baking sheet from oven and let cool slightly before transferring to a cooling rack.
Enjoy!
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