Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies

Another use for a mountain of oranges is dessert. And Cranberry Orange Shortbread cookies are one of my favorites, especially for tea time.
-AnglophileLV

Ingredients
•1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped fine
•1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
•10 tablespoons softened butter
•1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
•finely grated zest of 1 orange
Optional: finely chopped almond slivers (for a Morroccan touch), or Chai Masala (for an indian touch)
 
Preheat oven to 325.
Mix everything together and roll the thick dough out until it is 1/4th of an inch thick. These cookies do not rise, so you have to flatten it out to cookie-thickness. Then cut out your cookies with a cookie cutter, or the lid of a jar of yeast (that's what I did), and lay them on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
 
Bake for 20 minutes, until lightly browned on the bottoms.
 
Makes a little under 2-dozen.
 
Now - for extra flair - I spread melted Ghiradelli chocolate on half of each cookie. You can't go wrong with dark chocolate and orange. Yum.