Cookies - Orange Cookies

Last time we visited the Cookies section, we made Fancy Chocolate Refrigerator Cookies.  They were fancy looking, and had a decent texture, but were a little bit lacking in the flavor department.  I picked these orange cookies simply because I had all of the ingredients in the kitchen.  I'll admit a little hesitation though since it's not often that you see fruit flavored cookies.  In general fruit flavored things seem like they can be a bit of a gamble.  Naturally or artificially flavored, sometimes fruity things are great, sometimes they kind of suck.  Here's my comprehensive evaluation of fruity foods.

If apples are so good, why is apple juice so bad?

Someone at Kemps should be fired.

There's a reason why people have been drinking wine for millenia

There's no reason why anyone should eat these.

Your guide to freezies.

If you're going to have a popsicle, there's only one choice.

Sugar, flavored sugar no matter the color. 

Watermelon flavored anything is wrong.

There you have it.  Now you can go forth into the fruit flavored world with confidence.  So with that, we move into orange cookies.  They could be good, they could be the cookie equivalent of watermelon snow cones.

Preparation

C'mon Mrs. J. O. Botten, let's see what you've got.

First things first, assemble our ingredients.

The sour milk is already made at this point

I've got an assistant again today.  I love that James is interested in cooking and can't wait for him to make us dinner some time.  Then he can earn his keep by cooking nightly.

"Whenever there is spilled brown sugar, I'm going to eat it."  Sounds reasonable to me.

Like so many cookie recipes, we cream the sugar and fat, then add eggs.

How are we going to bulk him up if he insists on using a mixer instead of creaming the sugar and fat by hand?

Time for zest!

The first time I ever made a lemon meringue pie, I grated the whole peel of the lemons, not just the zest.  It tasted great, but the texture was terrible.  Lesson learned.

Dough mixed, now for the licking!

Mrs. J. O., you forgot to tell me when to put in the vanilla!  Glad I noticed before we got too far along.

You know, 'cause I don't look goofy enough without making faces.

We then spooned the sticky dough onto cookie sheets and put them in the oven.  Mrs. J.O. didn't indicate how long to bake the cookies, so after checking on them several times I settled on about 12 minutes. This was enough time to turn the edges a nice light golden color.

In the mean time, it was time to mix up the frosting.

Kind of runny and very delicious.

Yum

The icing drizzled nicely, but it was hard to know how much to put on.  Unfortunately, as time went on while additional pans were in the oven, the icing thickened a bit, and also ran low.  I'd suggest increasing the icing by about 50% from what the recipe suggests.  You can see in the next picture how the icing on the nearest cookies was more spooned on while the thrown-together, and a little too runny icing that I mixed up for the rest wasn't quite as thick as the original icing.  Oh well.  Not quite perfect cookies are still cookies.

I will chomp them anyway.

Tasting and Reactions

We eagerly ate a few of the very good-smelling cookies.

Sarah: They don’t look like what I expected.  I would eat the whole pan if I could

Me:  They’re good!  I’m… surprised.  They’re really good.

James:  Good.

Sarah:  What do you like about them?

James:  the frosting.

Sarah:  what flavors are you tasting?

James:  The orange, a lot.  Sugar too.

I brought some in to DCALS, one of the schools that I sub at regularly.  The students there are a lot of fun and the teachers are great too.  So I thought I'd try to bribe the teachers with baked goods so they'll have me come back more.  Here's what a few of them thought:

Short Erin:  The frosting added good flavor.  Nice texture.

Tall Erin:  Delicious, nothing overpowering.  Light.  Tasty.

Mystery teacher:  I wish I slowed down to savor the taste so I could blog better.  However they were soft and a little "citrusy", not too sweet and very pleasing.  I want more! *smiley face*

John - Similar to a pumpkin cookie, with the citrus taste.  Frosting complimented the cookie well.  Very balanced.  Slightly dry, but delicious.  [note: yes, they were a little dry by this point in time.  I hope the teachers don't hate me for this]

Janell - Delicious - remind me of cookies my mom used to make *smiley face with exclamation points for the eyes*  [that must be good, right?]

Aaron [not Short, Tall, nor me, who is called Tallest] - I enjoyed the initial orange flavor.  Light, not crunchy.  Was great.

Yes, the cookies were a little dry at almost a week after I made them and the orange flavor wasn't quite as strong as it was too.  Still, I hope the bribe worked.

In the end, I was pretty happy with these cookies.  The walnut "meats" seemed completely incidental, with so few nuts that it wasn't uncommon for some cookies to not have a single nut.  Perhaps more nuts would have been alright, but they wouldn't suffer without them.  Then there's the texture; I tend to like crispy/chewy cookies, but these were more cake-like.  I wouldn't say that it was a real detraction though since I'm not sure the frosting and orange flavor would work as well in a crispy cookie (this may call for some experimentation).  The orange flavor is subtle, but definitely there.  They're also not the prettiest cookies in the world, but since they're not in the "Fancy Cookies" section, so I suppose that's alright.  The question then, is where Orange Cookies stand in the hierarchy of what I've made so far.  They're certainly up there.  They're better than the Sour Milk Orange Cake and were also better than the Powdered Sugar Cookies from the Fancy Cookies section.  The flavor was better than Fancy Chocolate Refrigerator Cookies, but the potential for making those cookies fantastic might just give them the edge.  Without a careful ranking through, I'd say that the Orange Cookies are definitely in the top three or four things I've made so far.  Not too bad.

Next time:  Pies and Desserts!