Thursday, April 24, 2008

Orange Pecan Sugar Cookies

Orange makes another appearance...and this time, it is kinda, well bland.
These were a little too on the cakey side for my personal preference. Overall, not a bad flavor, just not something I would really go out of my way to make again, not when there are so many other fabulous things you can do with orange. I ended up adding some mini chocolate chips to the batter for about half the recipe and that improved them a bit.

This recipe came from Technicolor Kitchen who acquired the recipe from Baking Bites.



Ingredients:
1 medium orange
1/2 cup butter @ room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped
optional: 3/4 cup dried cranberries or milk chocolate chips



Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
Zest orange and add zest (about 1 tbsp) to butter mixture, along with 3-4 tbsp fresh orange juice (squeeze from remaining orange).
Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
Add flour mixture to butter mixture, blending it in at a low speed until no streaks of flour remain.
Stir in pecan pieces and optional cranberries, etc., if using.
Drop dough onto prepared baking sheet in rounded teaspoonfuls (1-inch balls), leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 9-12 minutes, until edges of the cookies are lightly browned.
Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
I ended up with about 4 dozen cookies. 2 dozen without anything and 2 dozen with chips.






If anyone tries these, I'd be interested to know if they turned out as cakey as mine did. I think I'd prefer these with a little less flour and a little more butter. The flavor of the pecan is almost lost in the orange/sugar cookie.

1 comment:

Sara said...

these were yummy yummy in my tummy tummy. i liked these.