These cookies are fabulous

You must go to the store right now, buy the ingredients,and make them.

Coconut Cranberry Chews
From Sunset Magazine Dec 2001
“Grand Prize Cookie Winner”

the mixture will look dry until it comes together as a dough. It it’s too crumbly to form into balls, the dough needs to be mixed longer; it should be a homogeneous mass.

Prep and cook time about 1 hour
Makes about 6 dozen cookies

¾ pound (1 ½ cups) butter or margarine, softened to room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups dried cranberries*
1 ½ cups sweetened flaked dried coconut

1. In a large bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat 1 ½ cups butter, sugar, orange peel, and vanilla until smooth.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture, stir to mix, then beat on low speed until dough comes together, about 5 minutes (see headnote about mixing). Mix in cranberries and coconut.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on buttered 12-by 15 inch baking sheets.
4. Bake in a 350 degree F oven until cookie edges just begin to brown (8-11 minutes). Shorter baking time will yield a chewier cookie; longer baking time will yield a crisper cookie. If baking two sheets at once in one over, switch their positions halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then use a wide spatula to transfer to racks to cool completely.
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NOTES:

I use only 2 sticks of margarine AND add 1 egg white. This makes the dough much easier to mix and handle, less crumbly, and more like a usual cookie dough (in my opinion). *Also, I buy the dried cranberries that are already orange-flavored; that adds to the flavor /taste, I think.