This year’s Cityline Holiday Cookie Swap was enormously successful, with more than 500 recipes submitted.

Congratulations to Jan F. from Whitby, Ontario, who won our 2013 contest for submitting her Cranberry streusel shortbread recipe. Jan wins a KitchenAid Bowl-Lift 6 Quart Pro 600 Stand Mixer with pasta roller and book, courtesy our friends at The Shopping Channel, retail value $799.

We also had two runners-up this year — Vancouver, B.C.’s Kristin G., who submitted her Chocolate gingersnaps, and Mississauga, Ontario’s Sobia Y., who submitted Monsoon blondies, each win a KitchenAid All-In-One Trio: Immersion Blender, Hand Mixer and Chopper (retail value: $154.99), also courtesy The Shopping Channel.

We’ve included those 3 recipes and 28 more viewer-submitted recipes in our downloadable 2013 Holiday Cookie Book. Download it here. [To save the file to your computer, right-click and “Save As”. Be aware that this is a large file and may take a few minutes to download.]

We’ll also be posting those 31 recipes on Cityline.ca throughout December to help provide you with plenty of baking inspiration. A huge thank you to all of you from across the country who entered.

Winning recipe: Cranberry streusel shortbread

Crust & streusel ingredients:

• 1 cup + 5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled to just warm
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 large egg yolks
• 3 cups + 3 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour

Cranberry topping ingredients:

• 1-12 oz. bag fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup granulated sugar

Method:

For the crust: Line a straight-sided 13×9″ metal baking pan with foil, letting the ends create an overhanging edge for easy removal. In a medium bowl, stir butter, 3/4 cup sugar, and salt. Add the egg yolks. Whisk in flour to make a stiff dough. Transfer 2 cups of dough to prepared pan and press the mixture evenly into the bottom. Prick the dough all over with fork. Refrigerate pan for 30 minutes until firm.

Position a rack in the centre of the oven and another near the top. Heat oven to 325F. Bake dough on centre rack until crust begins to set but does not brown on edges, about 20 minutes.

For the streusel: With fingers, combine the remaining 1/4 cup sugar with the reserved dough until crumbly, but break into small pieces.

For the cranberry topping: In a medium saucepan, bring the cranberries, sugar and 1/4 cup water to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium high and continue to boil until the liquid is reduced to a thick syrup, 5-8 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and let the mixture cool for 5-10 minutes – it will thicken.

Spread the cranberry mixture evenly over the hot crust. Scatter the streusel over the cranberries. Increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake the bars near the top of the oven until the streusel is golden and set, about 25 minutes.

Set the pan on a metal rack to cool until the crust is completely firm, at least 1 hour. When bottom of the pan is cool, carefully lift the bars from the pan using the foil sides and transfer them to a cutting board, separating the foil from the bars. Cut bars into 1 3/4-inch squares.

Submitted by Jan F.
Whitby, ON

Happy holidays, and happy baking!

The Cityline.ca team