Realistic Orange & Lemon Cookies
Introduction: Realistic Orange & Lemon Cookies
If you get bored with normal cookies, please try to challenge these orange and lemon cookies! They are so fun to make and so cute as gifts, and they taste really good too!
Every time I pack these as gifts I will always get the "Wow" from my friends, and if you have guests coming, these cookies in a nice plate with coffee will definitely make your guests impressed.
This type of cookie is called "icebox cookies", as it needs to be refrigerated and cut into pieces before baking. The original method was inspired by the polymer clay craft ideas, but now with food people can achieve crazy patterns as well.
A lemon & orange pattern would be nice compliments to the flavour as the shape and look is totally related with the taste.
So let's begin!
Supplies
Mixing bowl, spatula, rolling pin, whisk (or hand mixer), knifes, parchment paper and baking trays.
Step 1: Ingredients
Unsalted butter, softened 220g (1 cup)
Powdered sugar (Icing Sugar) 175g (1.5 cup)
Salt 1tsp
Egg 1 whole egg (around 55g) + 1 yolk
Cake flour 380g (3 cups)
Almond Meal 55g (1/2 cup)
Orange (or lemon) 2ea
Food colouring drops
NOTE:
Cake flour has a gluten lower than 10% and will have better mouthfeel, however you can use normal plain flour for similar result.
I use metric system as it's more accurate than imperial system in baking. However I've left the imperial units in the recipe if you don't have a scale. The recipe is made and tested with the metric units and will be referred in metric units in further steps.
You can also adjust the amount of sugar based on your own liking.
Step 2: Mix Sugar With Softened Butter
1. Use a whisk or a hand mixer, whisk the softened butter.
2. After it's properly whipped, it should look paler in colour and has shine to it.
3. Add the icing sugar in 3 times, mix with a spatula after each addition of sugar.
4. Don't forget to scrap the side of the bowl to make sure it's evenly mixed.
NOTE:
Butter needs to be really softened before whipping. You can leave it in room temperature for 30min or above (depending on your room temperature), or you can put the butter chunks in microwave with 15seconds intervals. Make sure they're super soft but not melted to allow the best whipping result.
Step 3: Add the Zest and Egg
1. Use a zester and zest your orange (and for your lemon cookies, zest the lemons)
2. Make sure you only zest the skin and not the white part underneath the skin, which could result in a bitter taste.
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Add the zest to the butter mixture.
4. Add 1tsp of salt, this will enhance the flavour
5. Put in your eggs into the mixture, mix again with the whisk or hand mixer till they're evenly mixed
Step 4: Add the Dry Ingredients
1. Mix almond meal into flour, make sure they're evenly mixed before putting into the batter.
2. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and egg mixture in 3 times. For the first 2 addition, mix with a spatula, for the last addition, mix with hand to form a dough (highly recommend to put gloves on as it's easier to clean up later).
NOTE:
Almond meal will make the cookie tastes much better than with just plain flour, and also make it "shorter" as almond meal does not contain gluten. If you don't have it, you can replace it with cake flour (low gluten flour).
The dough is still quite soft after the mixing, don't over knead the dough as the cookie will become chewy if it's mixed too much.
Step 5: Colour the Dough
1. You should have a dough of around total 900g weight.
Separate the dough into 2 parts:
1/4 dough (around 225) coloured into white
3/4 dough (around 675g) coloured into orange (or yellow) and also divide this orange dough into 1/4 and 3/4.
2. You will be able to make 2 logs with this recipe, or you can make 1 big log with larger cookies. The size is completely up to you.
3. Put some white colouring to the 1/4 dough (225g one) and knead it till it's evenly mixed, wrap it and put in the fridge. If you don't have white colouring you can leave this step out, however the contrast will be more visible with a white dough.
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