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These homemade white chocolate cranberry cookies need just 6 ingredients to make and require zero baking. Thick, chewy, and perfectly sweet.
When it comes to simple no-bake recipes, I love to make my no bake oatmeal cookies and white chocolate cranberry cookies.
The holiday season is my excuse to make every cookie recipe under the sun. While I do make the classics like sugar cookies, I sometimes skip the oven completely and make their no-bake counterparts.
Table of Contents
Recipe highlights
- Secretly healthy. No white flour, no refined sugar, and no butter or oil is needed.
- Ready in 5 minutes. These are the kind of cookies you can make on a whim without turning on the oven.
- Easy to customize. Keep them as they are, or add your favorite cookie mix-ins.
- Perfect texture and flavor. The texture is soft, chewy, and thick. They taste like vanilla cookies flavored with sweet white chocolate pieces that balance out the tartness of the cranberries.
Ingredients (and substitutions)
These cookies call for a handful of pantry staples to make. Because they don’t call for any raw flour, you can pretty much eat them as soon as they are shaped. Here is what you’ll need:
- Cashew butter– Smooth and drippy cashew butter, with no added sugar. Try to use cashew butter with a thin texture. Otherwise, it will be harder to mix into the other ingredients. You can replace this with almond butter, peanut butter, or even tahini.
- Maple syrup– Sweetens the cookies and helps hold them together. You can use honey or agave nectar.
- Coconut flour– A safe-to-eat-raw flour that is naturally gluten-free and lower in carbs. If you are worried about a coconut flavor, don’t be. You won’t be able to tell.
- Vanilla extract– Gives a touch of vanilla flavor to the cookies.
- White chocolate chips– What is a cranberry recipe without any white chocolate in it?
- Dried Cranberries– Be sure to use 100% unsweetened dried cranberries.
Find the printable recipe with measurements below.
How to make white chocolate cranberry cookies
Step 1- Make the dough. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your cashew butter, maple syrup, and coconut flour, until combined. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold through your white chocolate chips and dried cranberries.
Step 2- Shape the cookies. Using your hands, form small balls of dough and place on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Press down on each ball and using a fork, cross two sides.
Step 3- Chill. Refrigerate the cookies for at least 30 minutes, to firm up.
Recipe tips and variations
- I recommend chilling the dough for at least 30 minutes before enjoying them because they firm up nicely.
- If your cashew butter is a little firm, combine it with the maple syrup and microwave it together until smooth.
- If your cookie dough is a little too thick, add a few spoonfuls of water to thin it out.
- Feel free to add other mix-ins like standard chocolate chips, nuts, seeds, or even candy.
Storage instructions
To store: Cookies soften at room temperature, so should be stored in the refrigerator. Keep them covered (in a sealed container) and they will keep fresh for up to 2 weeks.
To freeze: Store cookies in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Frequently asked questions
While you can bake these cookies, they won’t have the best texture. Because they don’t have eggs or oil/butter in the dough, they will crumble.
Other safe-to-eat flours include oat flour and almond flour. These CAN be used, but you will need to double the amount for them.
More simple cookie recipes to try
- Peanut Butter Cookies– 3 ingredients and low in carbs.
- Coconut Cookies– These remind me of a mounds or bounty bar.
- Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies– 4 ingredients and seriously delicious.
- White Chocolate raspberry cookies– My family’s favorite cookie.
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup cashew butter
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line a large plate with baking paper and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine all your ingredients, except for the cranberries and white chocolate chips. Mix until combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold through the white chocolate chips and cranberries.
- Using your hands, form 12 balls and press firmly onto the lined plate and press to a cookie shape. Use a fork to cross each cookie. Freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes until firm.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe originally published November 2015 but updated to include new information for your benefit.
Hey “Big Man” Made these exactly-except mixed peanut, almond & pecan butter. Oh-added 2.5 TBSP shredded coconut. Made smaller ones at about 100 cals each. Yummy & satisfying!!
Unable to have cranberries any other suggestions?
any dried fruits!
Can you please clarify the Paleo version instructions in the parentheses under the first ingredient?? It’s not clear …
1 1/2 cups gluten free oat flour (for paleo version sub for 1/2 cup coconut flour)
Thx so much!!
Hi Donna, for the paleo option, use 1/2 cup coconut flour, instead of the oat flour. Hope that helps!
Do you have to use the Coconut flour or can you make do without?
Hi Michelle- You can omit it, but you’d have a different texture- You may need to add a little more oat flour too 🙂
Would you please give a recipe for dairy free white chocolate? ; )
Hi Debbie! Sure thing- This is what I use 🙂 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/organic-authoritycom/4ingredient-vegan-white-c_b_3481052.html
These were amazing! Such a hit at my Christmas party. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Gabriel! Thanks so much for the feedback! 🙂 Hope you had a fantastic Christmas!
These look so good!
Is it crazy that I’ve never seen the OC? I guess I should lump that in with HP? And I actually put honey in my hair as a treatment — leaves it so soft 😛 Not sure about molasses, though. Dare me to try it?
Unless you want your hair smelling heinous for 3 days after….gah!
Hair flipping is an art that should not be entered into lightly 😉
I am amazed that these are healthy! They look so so yummy!
Hahaha touche! Thanks so much, Steph!
Poor Niki…oh the torture! It is pretty funny though! And yum on the cookies…already pinned them this morning!
Hahaha it was so bad…her hair smelt SO strong for 3 days after! Thanks Michelle 🙂
I never watched the O.C. but Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill were a couple I loved. Oh, Niki. It’s hilarious how many stories you have of her antics. 🙂 These cookies could make their way to my house in the mail, no? Or any of your treats. Just sayin…
oh don’t get me started on OTH. My sister was obsessed with that too. I wanted to throw molasses at Peyton.
Haha – you are so wrong – but this is too funny – unless you are your sister! Molasses alone is so hard to clean up – that must have been one heck of a task cleaning it and the cranberry sauce off the kitchen AND getting it out of her hair!
Arman, your mom sure knows how to do Christmas dessert – gingerbread men, trifle, sticky date pudding, cheesecake and panettone sounds like one heck of a spread! As do these cookies all by themselves! Love how firm they look AND they are no bake!
It was SO funny- Like, even with shampoo and conditioner, it wouldn’t come out and for 3 days there was this really strong scent!
It would be nice to heave a healthier dessert like this at the Thanksgiving table (or with all the leftovers for the rest of the weekend haha) These sound awesome!
Thanks so much, Liz! 🙂
I bet Niki can attribute the glow in her hair to this very incident.
I love the combination of white chocolate, cranberry and orange. I have a scone recipe in fact with these very flavors.
Oh hell yes. I need to try adding some orange zest next time…or just eating some oranges with it!
Both trifle and sticky date pudding on one and the same eve? Invite me over should you ever have an event like that again, please. I’ll even handle the molasses in exchange ;).
And O.C.! I feel I might need to watch a few episodes again.
These cookies look and sound great.
YES! Niki goes from start to finish, repeat. Although skips parts of season 4 because that was kind of crap!
LOL I always love the backstory behind your recipes. I think I need a Niki in my life to make my content more interesting to read haha. Anywhoo, white chocolate and cranberry are some of my favorite holiday flavor combos, so you hit this one out of the park for me!
Thanks buddy! I’ll whip you up a batch in T minus 1 month 😀
White chocolate cranberry is a holiday classic! And honestly, the holidays just arent the same until someone gets mad and storms off while someone else is splattering the kitchen walls with cranberry sauce. But thats the holidays for you, right? Here’s to hoping that Panda eats the turkey off of the table this year. That would really get your Mom happy, right?
She’d be thrilled! I’m actually loving this combo now- I tried a sheet cake with these two flavors and wow!
Drooling. Despite the fact that I just ate breakfast. Flipping my hair in molasses and cranberry sauce is definitely something I would do, so I empathize with Niki. One time we were having a Christmas party, and we had candles on the table. They started dripping hot wax and burning the table cloth, and no one realized until the neighbor’s kid was like, “I think your table is burning.”
Good.
So very excited for these 🙂
YESSSSS. YOU WILL TASTE TEST THESE (Although maybe deformed…)
The last time my sister and I were together at a family dinner, she was laughing so hard she flipped her hair into the candle on the table. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen both because she sounded like a seal when she laughed and because her hair was like a fireworks show. Can’t wait for this year haha
oh yay! I hope something similar happens!
These look too good! I need to make some dairy free white chocolate 🙂 I was going to bake with molasses this week so good reminder to keep my hair up too.
Oh man, molasses. So good, yet so detrimental haha!