These cranberry spice cookies combine cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and dried cranberries with buttery shortbread-like cookie dough. It’s an easy cookie recipe prepared in 1 bowl with 9 simple ingredients. The creamy eggnog icing is optional, but I recommend it because it tastes divine with these festive spice flavors!
These are my Cranberry Spice Cookies with Eggnog Icing!
Today’s cranberry spice cookies are a spiced cranberry version of snowball cookies. Like little drops of Christmas cookie heaven, they combine cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and dried cranberries with buttery shortbread-like cookie dough. We’ll cover the teeny cookies with sweet and creamy eggnog glaze, a combination of confectioners’ sugar, real eggnog, vanilla, and cinnamon. Honestly the cookies don’t even need icing on top, but I couldn’t resist a little eggnog addition here!
And bonus: If you skip the eggnog icing, the cookies are totally egg-free! If you’re interested, see below for some icing alternatives, too. 🙂
Adapted from my snowball cookies and pistachio cookies, these cranberry spice cookies have the same shortbread-like crumbly texture, while remaining extra soft and buttery. Consider these and my peppermint snowball cookies the holiday versions of lemon coconut shortbread cookies. All of these linked cookie recipes are similar.
Before you even begin making the dough, chop dried cranberries into itty bitty pieces. These cookies are small and we want to make sure there are a lot of cranberries in each bite. The smaller, the better. Dried cranberries are a little sticky, so be patient and use a very sharp knife. Then start the prep:
Note: The cookie dough will seem dry, but keep mixing because it will eventually combine. The dough is still a little crumbly, but will easily roll into balls after the 30 minutes of chilling. It’s texture is quite similar to the dough we need for pecan shortbread or almond crescent cookies.
These cranberry spice cookies taste great on their own, but taste even better with a little icing. You need eggnog (I just use store-bought), confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. Whisk together, taste, then add a pinch of salt if desired. You can add more confectioners’ sugar to thicken the icing or more eggnog to thin it out. It’s creamy, sweet, and tastes like melted vanilla ice cream. (It really does!)
If you’re not a fan of eggnog, I have other options for you:
Or if you can’t get enough eggnog, try these spiced eggnog oatmeal cream pies next.
These have a way of NOT making it out of the kitchen. Should any survive to land on your holiday cookie platters, I know they’ll be equally loved. The cookies are uniquely tasty, plus the ingredient list is short and the preparation is simple. Christmas cookie success!
Adapted from my snowball cookies, these soft and crumbly Cranberry Spice Cookies have deliciously festive spice flavor. The cookie dough is made from 9 easy ingredients and requires just 1 mixing bowl. There’s only 30 minutes of cookie dough chilling needed, making this a quick cookie recipe.
