Mandarin Orange Crinkle Cookies

Mandarin Orange Crinkle Cookies

Jumbo orange-flavored cookies have a place on any cookie platter.  5 from 2 votes Prep Time 5 mins Cook Time 12 mins cooling 30 mins Course Dessert Cuisine American Servings 18 jumbo cookies

Ingredients   

for the dough:

• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• zest of 2 mandarin oranges about 1-1 1/2 tablespoons
• 3-4 tablespoons mandarin orange juice from about 2 oranges
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt

for dusting:

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar I used orange-colored sugar
• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Instructions  

• Preheat oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment set aside.
• In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and orange zest. Beat in the egg and juice until smooth. Add the remaining dough ingredients. Set aside.
• Whisk together the dusting ingredients in a small bowl/
• Scoop 1 1/2 -2 tablespoon-sized balls of dough (I used a cookie scoop) and roll them into balls. Roll in the sugar mixture.
• Place on the pan 1 1/2 inches apart. Repeat for the remaining dough. Bake for 12 minutes or until the tops look set and the edges are just the barest hint of brown. Cool on pan for 2 minutes then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.

• Can’t find mandarin oranges? Sub in clementines aka Cuties or navel oranges
• The granulated sugar helps the confectioners’ sugar stick to the dough, don’t leave it out!
• Recipe can be doubled
• If you’d like smaller cookies, roll them in 1 tablespoon balls. These are jumbo cookies!
• I used this cookie scoop and made rounded scoops. 

Keyword cookies, dessert I really haven’t felt like baking, to be honest. Making every meal that we’ve eaten in the last 280 days does fatigue. But it is the holidays and it seemed wrong not to make something! My family’s tradition is to make black bottom cupcakes for the family, friends, and neighbors. We don’t feel comfortable visiting anyone or delivering baked goods this year thanks to the pandemic, the recipe yields a ton and the process is easy but time-consuming so there will be no black bottoms this year.

Luckily cookies are easy to make on a whim. I think citrus cookies always seem festive. In the US winter is when citrus at its peak and while lemonade and lemon squares are popular summertime treats if you really want your citrus recipes to shine, you need to make them in the winter.

I know we are getting close to Christmas here but these cookies call for the most basic of baking pantry ingredients and oranges. I used mandarin oranges because I had them on hand and I think their skin has some of the most robustly scented (and flavored) zest but clementines (often branded as Cuties) or tangerines would work well too. Mandarin oranges are like the great grandmother of these other tiny citrus spin-offs. Navel oranges would work too, especially if you are making them now when they are at their peak.

Getting a strong citrus flavor in baked goods can be difficult without using extracts, the flavor of juice really bakes out,  but it can be done. The trick to really orange-y cookies is to load up on the zest and cream it into the butter and sugar. I think the grittiness of the sugar really gets the oils out of the zest and infused the butter with it much better than adding it in with the dry ingredients or later in the process. These cookies had a bright orange flavor in every bite. The texture is amazing too, perfectly chewy yet crisp around the edges.

,