Orange Poppy Seed Cookies

Orange Poppy Seed Drops
350°F
10-15 minutes 
Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Cookies:
- 1 cup granulated sugar

- 3/4 cup butter, softened

- 2 eggs

- 2-1/2 cup all purpose flour

- 2 tsp grated orange peel

- 1 tbsp orange juice

- 1 tbsp poppy seeds

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Frosting:

- 1/2 cup powdered sugar

- 2-3 tsp orange juice

1- In large mixing bowl combine sugar, butter, and eggs. Beat at medium speed until well blended.

2- Add flour, orange peel, 1tbsp orange juice, poppy seeds, baking soda, and ginger. Beat on low speed until soft dough forms.

3- Drop dough by rounded heaping tsp two inches apart onto prepared cookie sheets.

4- Bake for 10-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

5- Cool completely before frosting

6- In small bowl, combine powdered sugar and orange juice until smooth. 

7- Spread frosting evenly on cookies, let dry completely before storing.

My grandma and I first made these cookies on December 13th, 2008. Specific, huh? Truthfully, the only reason I know it was that exact date is because my grandma would write a little note in my cookie book every year, and she specifically wrote about us trying these for the first time that year. Here is what she said:

“Dearest McKenzie,

Now you are 14-1/2 and a freshman @ WHS. You are quite a young lady now. Today you are making cut out sugar cookies in the shape of trees, bells, and canes. You seem like quite the baker now except with the gingerbread man. Having difficulty cutting them out so back to the bells and trees. Then we made orange poppy seeds and peanut butter blossoms. You did everything from start to finish. We talked & laughed and had a good time. I hope years from now when I’m gone you’ll remember today and the smell. I love you so much. 

With much love,

Grandma 12/13/08” 

I don’t exactly know why, but my aunt and I found this list grandma was keeping in her recipe box of what years she made what cookies. I don’t know if it was just to keep track of making sure she was making the same staples every year; or if grandma liked to know what years she tried new things. This was an amazing find to me, just another tangible memory of a baking day with my grandma. I hope wherever she is at, she can recall those days with more detail than I can, and I hope she knows I remember them too.

If I could encourage you to try any recipe on this blog so far, I think these would be it. These are such a good, and I feel, unusual cookie. They are fresh and citrusy, but sweet and cake-y. Almost like if you took all of the best qualities of cookies and of muffins and mashed them together. 

First thing I started with was zesting an orange. I only bought one orange for this recipe, and prayed it would be enough for 2 tsp of orange peel. Turns out, it was the perfect amount. I ended up cutting this orange up and offering it to my son, but I had bought orange juice at the store anyways, so I did not juice this orange. Therefore, I can’t tell you if one orange truly is enough for this recipe. My bad. 

As per usual, I have strong feelings about these recipes telling you to dump a bunch of stuff in your mixer together. I did not follow this part of the recipe. I creamed together my butter and sugar first, and then I added the eggs one at a time. Then the orange juice. Letting each ingredient get fully incorporated before adding the next. 

Once all of the wet ingredients were mixed, I mixed my dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and added that slowly to the butter mixture. I let this mix on low speed until the soft dough came together. 

Once the batter was fully mixed, I used two spoons to drop rounded dough balls onto a greased cookie sheet. I tried my best to keep them about 2 inches apart, and baked for 10 minutes. 

After 10 minutes, I periodically checked on them to look for signs of a slight golden brown color on the edges. These cookies are not ones you want to accidentally over bake, so stay on the side of caution. As soon as the ver edges start to turn golden brown, it’s time to take them out. 

These cookies do come out spongey, almost cake like. Which I find makes them so easy to remove from the greased cookie sheet. I let them all cool fully on the cooling rack before frosting. 

The recipe called to mix 1/2 cup powdered sugar with 2-3 tsp of orange juice. As you can see by the second picture above, this was not nearly enough liquid to make an icing consistency. This formed pretty much a hard ball, so I kept adding orange juice and stirring until I got to a consistency that could be drizzled. 

The recipe says to frost these cookies, which to me means using a knife or spatula to spread the frosting over the cookies. However, because these are drop cookies, they do not come out flat, they come out rather domed or lumpy on the top, which makes it harder to frost. I did half of the batch as best I could according to the recipe, and the other half I used a spoon to drizzle the icing over the cookies. Both taste absolutely great, but I just think the drizzled ones look better. What do you think?

And that’s it! Delicious orange poppy seed cookies. I love these, and so do several of my family members. They are one of my mom’s favorites. When I was telling her that I would be making these, I was so surprised to find out she remembered me making them over 16 years ago, and she was so excited to have some again. I made these back in February, and it is now April. Just this past weekend I was over at my Nan’s for Easter and I had brought another cookie. My brother-in-law mentioned these specifically recalling how delicious they were. They are definitely worth trying.