It's Baking Season!

• Roughly chop the fresh cranberries in food processor or a by hand with a sharp knife. Separate the egg and place the egg yolk into one bowl and the egg white into another bowl. Refrigerate the egg white until ready to bake the cookies.
• Place the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Zest the orange on top of the sugar until you have about 2 teaspoons. Use your fingers to rub the zest into the sugar. Add the kosher salt and the butter. With the paddle attachment beat the sugar, salt and butter on medium speed until it is well combined and looks creamy, 2 minutes. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.
• Add the egg yolk and mix on medium speed until the egg yolk is fully incorporated. Add all the flour and mix on medium-low speed just until the dough starts to come together and forms large clumps. Add the chopped cranberries and mix on low until the cranberries are dispersed throughout the dough. The dough will still be large clumps and have streaks of red.
• Turn out the dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Gently gather the dough together into a disk by gently pressing the dough together and shaping it into a round disk. Divide the dough into two pieces, weighing about 370 grams each.
• Shape each dough half into a 7-inch long, 1-1/2 diameter log, by forming it into a short cylinder and then rolling it back and form with open hands. Move your hands from the center to the outside edges and back again to maintain even thickness. Add additional flour to surface as needed.
• Wrap the parchment paper around your dough log, lengthwise. Then twist each end of the paper into pigtails in opposite directions (one towards you and one away from you) to form a locking mechanism. With each twist, the dough will compress and becomes smoothed out (think of it like a sausage in a casing). Roll from the center outward until you feel that you have a smooth, cylindrical log.
• Chill the dough for at least 1 hours and up to 2 days.

Baking the Cookies

• Preheat the oven to 325F degrees. Remove one of the logs of cookie dough from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. Brush the entire cookie dough log with egg white and then sprinkle the dough with the demerara (turbinado) sugar. Press the sugar into the dough as you rotate the log.
• Slice the log with a sharp knife into 1/2-inch rounds and place them on a cookie sheet about 2-inches apart. Bake the cookies for about 15-17 minutes. The bottom of the cookie will be light golden brown. If the cookies are brown on top reduce the baking time by 1-2 minutes.
• Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes then use a spatula to move them to a wire rack.

Storage

• Store the cookies in airtight container for up to 2 weeks. The cookies taste even better on the second day.