Colm O'Gorman's spiced orange cookies
Colm O'Gorman's spiced orange cookies: Today
Simple, fragrant cookies with warm spices and a bright citrus flavour. They are quick to prepare and perfect for batch baking. These can be frozen as dough and then cooked on demand - a mug of tea and two of these makes for gorgeous treat.
Ingredients
Makes about 12 cookies
Prep 10 mins + chilling time
Bake 10–12 mins
125g plain flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
75g sugar
2 tbsp milk
30g melted butter
¼ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Zest of 1–2 oranges
About ½ tsp of freshly grated nutmeg
Method
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl.
Mix the oil and milk with the vanilla extract and orange zest.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until a stiff dough forms.
The dough may seem sticky at first but will come together as you mix it. It should form a slightly crumbly cookie dough.
Shape the dough into a ball, cover with some cling film and chill in the fridge for a few hours. If you are short on time, 30 minutes in the freezer will do.
Heat the oven to 165°C.
Remove the chilled dough and roll into small balls. For evenly sized cookies, each ball should weigh about 30g.
Place on a baking tray, leaving space between them for the cookies to spread slightly.
Bake for 10–12 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool. The cookies will be a little soft when they come out of the oven but will firm up beautifully as they cool.
Allow to cool on the wire rack for 10–15 minutes before serving.
Chef's Tips
This works beautifully as a vegan recipe. Just use a plant-based milk instead of dairy, and swap in two tablespoons of olive oil for the butter.
The cookies can be made in advance and stored in the freezer until you are ready to bake, so they are perfect for batch cooking. Make a double batch and you will have a supply in the freezer that you can take out and bake on demand in less than fifteen minutes when you need them.
