Cranberry and Macadamia Cookies

For me, it's got to be butter: it gives by far the best flavour to baking. The ready made gluten free cookies I've tasted never use butter so they just don't taste as good. I've fed these cookies to unsuspecting guests not on a gluten free diet and they haven't noticed the difference...

I used rice flour which already has raising agents in it, if your gluten free flour doesn't include any, you will need to add half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to give these cookies a spring in their step.

Ingredients
3/4 cup brown sugar
100g soft butter
1 vanilla pod [bean]
1 egg
1 cup gf flour
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Cream the butter and sugar together, until just combined.
scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and add to the butter and sugar mix.
Beat in an egg.
Fold the gluten free flour.
Fold in the cranberries and macadamias.
If you want to bake off now, [ and I don't recommend baking immediately; I speak from bitter experience :) ] drop tablespoons of the mix onto a prepared baking tray and refrigerate while preheating the oven to 180 degrees.
Bake until golden brown; cool on the tray for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
The cookies will crisp up as they cool.



Otherwise, roll up in clingfilm and refrigerate overnight, or until needed - I'd give it a max of 3 days in the fridge; any longer- freeze it. You can then just slice off cookies and bake when required, this method gives a better result and appearance. It also avoids disintegration into crumbs, which has happened to me too often when making gluten free baked goods. It's also important not to overmix the butter and sugar at the beginning.