Cranberry swirl shortbread recipe

While we love classic old-fashioned shortbread, its simple flavor provides the perfect base for endless variations. For a festive, colorful spin on the traditional cookie, we wanted to add a swirl of cranberries; not only pleasing to the eye, a bright red spiral of pureed cranberries added a welcome tartness to the rich, buttery shortbread. We cooked the cranberries with orange and cinnamon to create another layer of flavor and then pureed them for a smooth texture and a filling that was easy to spread and pipe. In addition to spiraling the puree on top of the dough, we sandwiched a layer in the middle of the shortbread; this allowed us to incorporate more flavorful puree without weighing down the top and making it soggy. We baked the thick shortbread sandwich in two stages to get a really crisp bottom without drying out the cranberry swirl on top.