A Chef That Sews

It's time for another recipe callously jacked from my NYTC subscription. @arquiving requested this one.

ORANGE BUTTER COOKIES

Ingredients (yield: About 4 dozen cookies)

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 2/3 cups cake flour or more all-purpose flour (cake flour gives a finer texture)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter

2 packed teaspoons freshly grated orange zest (arc note: i would do 3 or 4 personally)

1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

For the Icing

1 orange

1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk

2 drops almond or vanilla extract

Pinch fine salt

Preparation

Step 1: Position two oven racks in top and bottom third of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Step 2: In a bowl, whisk flours, baking soda and salt together. In a mixer, cream together the sugar, butter and orange zest at medium speed until light and smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of bowl frequently. Add egg and mix. Add one egg yolk and mix. Add remaining egg yolk and mix. Stir in dry ingredients just until combined.

Step 3: Scoop tablespoons of dough onto parchment, leaving more than 1 inch between cookies. Press each one down lightly with 2 fingers to flatten to a thickness of ½ inch. Leave any ridges and valleys on top of cookie intact, but smooth the edges.

Step 4: Bake about 15 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through. Cookies should be pale but baked all the way through. Cool on sheets 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack and cool before storing in airtight containers up to 1 week.

Step 5: When ready to serve, make icing: Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Peel orange, being careful to remove only outer orange zest, and cut into thin strips. Blanch in boiling water 1 minute; drain. Sift confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Whisk in 2 tablespoons milk. Whisk in more milk if needed to make mixture thin enough to spread. Add extract, salt and zest, and whisk to combine.

Step 6: Place cookies on a rack and drizzle icing over each one (make sure there is some orange zest in each spoonful). Icing will settle into cookie crevices; let harden.

Note from Arc: The cook time seems short for a dough this thick and the cookies come out pretty pale, but the 5 extra minutes on the sheet really help. None of them were under-cooked for us, so the timing was perfect.

Since I'm caught up on all my quilt alongs, I've decided to do a little work on my Generations Quilt blocks!

In the Project Update shared earlier this week, I noticed I've gotten pretty far ahead on the Six Pointed Star blocks while the Dresden Plates were falling behind. I picked up the blue and gold ones I'd been piecing in November and decided they deserved to be completed!