Baking with Joy: Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Occasionally baking should be left to the all stars. And we've got an all star in Boston. The Baking with Joy stand shows up at the Dewey Square Farmers Market in Boston on Thursdays, bringing with it an array of multi-colored, moist, fluffy cakes, and chewy, sweet, salty, decadent cookies. Mounds and mounds of sweets, all with the same grandma looking, honest imperfections. These aren't cupcakes with swirls and fondant bees sticking out of the top. They're all just time tested recipes of lovely, local flavors. Whenever I find that I need something on a Thursday to get me safely to Friday, I venture out to the farmers market, and pick up a batch of 6 cookies, totaling $5 and worth every single, solitary penny.

My favorite of their offerings is something just a little bit unique. Check out the cranberry, white chocolate chip cookies. These cookies have the perfect, chewy texture that you might expect out of any homemade chocolate chip cookie: break one in half and there's a little bit of a sticky, warmed, brown sugar crumble going on, enough so that you can delight in pulling a piece of the cookie off of the whole. Aside from the texture of the cookie, it's the combination of super sweet white chocolate with those tart, slightly bitter, and mildly sweet dried cranberries. At times, white chocolate is cloyingly sweet. But when you have a bit of the white chocolate with the combination of the tartness of the deep pink cranberry, boy is this a marriage made in heaven. Everything balances itself out in a single bite, and then the flavor is given a little salty kick at the very last moment, enhancing the harmony of a perfect cookie. 
Man, what a fabulous cookie. Worth every cent, every calorie, and now I'm sure to finish the week strong.


DETAIL RUNDOWN:
Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Dewey Square Farmers Market (Thursdays)
http://www.bakingwithjoy.com