Our White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies have the perfect flavors for fall and winter! These cookies perfectly blend orange zest, dried cranberries, and creamy white chocolate in a soft cookie. These cranberry orange cookies are gluten free, dairy free, and top 8 free.
One of my favorite flavor combinations for fall and winter is white chocolate, orange, and cranberries. These flavors take me back to holiday baking when we were kids where these flavors made their way into one of our favorite fall muffin recipes.
I decided to take our reader favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and make it even softer, and added allergy friendly mix-ins to create our top 8 free White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies!
This version of our chocolate chip cookies are even thicker and softer, great for those of you who prefer soft cookies vs. crunchy ones. These have a perfect amount of orange essence (not overpowering), with creamy white chocolate pieces and tangy dried cranberries.
These cookies would make great holiday gifts for family and friends with food allergies! Bake up a batch and pack them in a pretty holiday box or tin and add an ingredient list.
Our white chocolate cranberry cookies are:
- Top 8 free
- Vegan
- Peanut and tree nut free
- Soy free (when using the recommended dairy free butter)
How to make gluten free white chocolate cranberry cookies
Here are the steps to make our cranberry orange cookies (the full recipe card is at the end of the post):
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the softened dairy free butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, orange zest, and baking soda.
- Add the all purpose gluten free flour, the sorghum flour, and the dairy free milk to the butter mixture and cream again until mixed thoroughly.
- Add the white chocolate chips and Craisins to the cookie dough and mix again until evenly distributed. The dough should be thick and able to be rolled into balls.
- Scoop cookie dough out with a silverware teaspoon (or measuring tablespoon) and drop on the cookie sheet by spoonfuls about 2 inches apart. You can flatten the dough slightly.
- If you’d like more uniform cookies, roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls then flatten slightly on the cookie sheet. We rolled our cookies for the photos so they looked nice, but both methods work.
- Bake 10-11 minutes for soft cookies, or 12-13 minutes for crispier cookies.
- Allow to cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days (if they last that long!) or freeze them. These store well in the freezer.
The orange works great in this recipe, but if you’re not a fan of orange, feel free to leave out the orange zest in these cookies. The our cranberry cookies will still taste delicious even without it!
Where to find dairy free white chocolate chips
For our white chocolate cranberry cookies, we used the Great Value allergy friendly white chocolate chips, which we think have a better taste and texture than the Nestle Simply Delicious white chocolate chips.
Enjoy Life Foods just released their allergy friendly white chocolate chips that are top 14 free, however at this time they only come in mini chips and not the full sized white chocolate chips (we added a link to those below).
We made a batch of these cranberry orange cookies with the Enjoy Life mini chips and they turned out great, however we prefer the full sized chips in our cookies. So I hope they release the full sized white chocolate soon!
- Enjoy Life Foods mini white chocolate chips
- Pascha white chocolate chips
- King David white chocolate chips (contain soy)
- Dee Best vegan white chocolate chips
- Great Value allergy friendly white chocolate chips (also available in dark and semi-sweet)
- Nestle Simply Delicious white chocolate chips (also available in dark and semi-sweet)
If you can’t find any allergy friendly white chocolate chips, you can also use regular semi-sweet chocolate chips instead. We like the Nestle Simply Delicious ones, and the new Enjoy Life ricemilk chocolate chips are perfect for these cookies, too!
Gluten free baking mix vs. gluten free all purpose flour
We used the King Arthur Flour all purpose gluten free baking mix in this recipe, which is slightly different than a gluten free all purpose flour.
Gluten free baking mix already has baking soda, salt, xanthan gum, and baking powder in it already. If you are using a gluten free all purpose flour that has xanthan gum in it but doesn’t have baking soda, salt, etc. you can add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt to this recipe.
Both gluten free flour and gluten free baking mix will work in this recipe, just be aware that the baking mix already has salt and baking soda added into the mix.
I’ve found that both work well in my recipes that call for gluten free all purpose flour or baking mix, but you’ll just need to add the baking soda and salt if you use the flour instead of the baking mix.
Check out our other allergy friendly cookie recipes!
- Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
- Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies (aka Inside Out Chocolate Chip Cookies)
- Snickerdoodles
- Best Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
- SunButter Blossom Cookies
Gluten Free White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
- ½ cup dairy free/vegan butter, softened* (we recommend the Country Crock Plant Butter sticks)*
- ½ cup unbleached cane sugar
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest (optional, skip if you don't want orange flavor in the cookies)
- 1 cup gluten free all purpose baking mix** (we used King Arthur Flour gluten free all purpose baking mix)
- ¾ cup sorghum flour OR brown rice flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup rice milk or other dairy free milk
- ½ cup Craisins
- 1/3-1/2 cup allergy friendly white chocolate chips (we like the Great Value allergy friendly white chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the dairy free butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and orange zest.
- Add the all purpose gluten free flour, the sorghum flour, and the dairy free milk to the butter mixture and cream again until mixed thoroughly.
- Add the white chocolate chips and craisins to the cookie dough and mix again until evenly distributed. The dough should be thick and able to be rolled into balls.
- Scoop cookie dough out with a silverware teaspoon (or measuring tablespoon) and drop on the cookie sheet by spoonfuls about 2 inches apart. You can flatten the dough slightly.
- If you'd like more uniform cookies, roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls then flatten slightly on the cookie sheet.
- Bake 10-11 minutes for soft cookies, or 12-13 minutes for crispier cookies.
- Allow to cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days (if they last that long!) or freeze them. These store well in the freezer.
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
I can’t eat any rice at all anymore, so King Arthur Baking Mix is out for me. They do have a rice free (paleo) blend. I wonder if that will work in this recipe? I bought it and tried it with some of their own recipes. It’s okay but not as good as I had hoped. Thank you.
I’m not sure if King Arthur Flour has any paleo blend flours, but I know that Bob’s Red Mill does have a paleo/grain free blend flour, however I’m not quite sure if it’s a 1-to-1 blend or not, it doesn’t say that it is on the package. I haven’t used that one since my daughter was allergic to almonds for a long time and that blend has almond flour.
Another option is the Otto’s cassava flour, it’s not cassava starch but flour made from the whole root. I have used their cookie mix and it’s good, it does have a different taste but not too bad. Their cassava flour is 1:1 by weight, or reduce flour by 25% when measuring by volume (in cups, etc.). I haven’t used their cassava flour in regular recipes, but I do have a bag of it I will try making some of these cookies with it this weekend to see how it works in this recipe and let you know.
I’m also getting some grain free flours to try out from another company called Beth Blends, they have several kinds of nut free grain free flour blends, but they don’t say it’s a 1:1 blend.
Although I should add that since these cookies don’t have eggs, they use the xanthan gum as a binder. If you used cassava flour you’d need to add a binder to this (like xanthan gum or guar gum).