Orange Vanilla Cookies

Passover has come and Passover has gone and we switch back into “flour mode” or chametz pretty darn quickly. There is no question that there’s also something comforting about non gluten free cookies, for those of us who can eat them, and with all the madness we have had (currently have a ceasefire, we shall see) of running down to the shelter at all hours of the day and night, a little routine and normalcy is a nice thing. Isn’t it strange that a regular cookie can perk people up? And especially a citrusy lovely orangey vanilla cookie.

A little aside here. The people in the office, the day after the holiday, were talking to us as we were about to leave the apartment and mentioned that there was no chametz in the office (i.e. no pretzels, cookies, junk food of that ilk) and sounded a bit desperate even though it was said jestingly. I told DH, I’m gonna surprise them and make them happy. Any baked goods I had at home were the gluten free kind, so I crossed the street to the French pastry shop and bought a bunch of croissants and pain au chocolat for them. Well, that was my good deed for the day. Their eyes shone like stars and all the while they were protesting that they gained weight on the holiday and couldn’t possibly, each and every one snuck into the kitchen and chowed down on a pastry with their coffee. Like I said, comfort food in a cookie/pastry.

So back to our cookies. Gather your ingredients

Now while you can absolutely make this in a mixer, I prefer to make it in my food processor, it’s done whiz bang and you don’t overmix the dough.

Place your sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, vanilla sugar (or extract) and orange peel into the processor and whiz briefly together to combine.

Add the egg and the margarine and pulse together -don’t let the food processor run, just pulse on and off just till dough is crumbly. It make look a bit dry. No worries.

Now you add a tablespoon of orange juice, not more and pulse again.

Pulse on and off twice. If still crumbly, add one more tablespoon of juice. That should be sufficient and you don’t want to overdo the liquid since it will unbalance the texture of the dough. Good. Pulse, one two and it should look like so

As you can see, the dough forms a nice ball, smooth-ish and maybe a drop sticky but not too. Gather all the dough from the processor (watch out for the sharp blade) and form two logs. Wrap and pop into the freezer.

Let freeze for minimum half an hour, preferably an hour.

Remove from freezer, preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C and cut logs into rounds, placing on parchment paper lined baking pans.

If the cookies get a bit misshapen (not round enough looking) no worries, just nudge into shape. Pop into preheated oven and bake about 15-18 minutes or till golden brown with a slight orange tint. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks. Cookies continue to crisp up when cooling. Lovely, flavorful and citrusy scented.

Orange Vanilla Cookies

1 cup (200 grams) sugar 

3 cups (375 grams) flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt 

2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or extract 

2-3 teaspoons orange peel, grated 

1 cup (225 grams) butter/margarine, cubed

1 large egg

1-2 tablespoons orange juice

Directions:

Whirl in food processor the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, vanilla sugar and orange zest/peel. Add egg and margarine. Pulse till crumbly. Continue pulsing on and off and add one tablespoon juice. If after brief pulsing still no dough ball add one more tablespoon. Pulse on and off once or twice. No more juice should be necessary and you don’t want to change the texture of the dough. Form into two logs and wrap in plastic wrap. Freeze for at least 1/2 an hour preferably longer till somewhat frozen (an hour is good).

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Cut logs into 1/2 inch rounds and place on parchment lined baking sheets. Bake for 15 -18 minutes or till golden and crisp. Let cool on wire racks.