Orange Drop Cookies

Ever since I was a little girl (about 6 weeks old) we have been taking a trip to Wisconsin each Summer to visit my grandparents. Grandma Casto, my mom’s mom, is excellent in the kitchen- both cooking and baking. I can vividly remember arriving at their house after driving nine to eleven hours and running straight to the pantry to grab one of these cookies. It was tradition that she always had them ready when we arrived and we would get to have a little treat before unpacking the car. As I got older, all of the cooking and baking became harder for her to do by herself so she started waiting to bake the cookies until we arrived. She made the dough ahead of time and once we got there all she did was bake them and I was put in charge of icing them. The memories I have from baking in the kitchen with her will last me a lifetime. It was during those moments that we would talk one-on-one and I’d get to hear the wisdom she had gained over the years. Whenever I make these cookies, I will always remember the recipe box it came from and how I learned to make them.

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To make the batter for the Orange Drop Cookies you will need to gather the following ingredients:

3/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 tsp. grated orange peel (add extra)
3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
3 3/4 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt

Begin by placing 3/4 cup shortening and 1 1/2 cups of sugar into a mixing bowl. I used a stand mixer but a hand mixer will work just fine! Cream the butter and sugar together until well mixed. Add eggs one by one, beating in between each addition. Once all 3 eggs have been incorporated into the dough, add at least 3 teaspoons of grated orange peel and beat well. Now that the peel has been grated off of two oranges, cut each one in half and juice them. If you don’t have a nifty juicer like I used, squeezing the juice out the old-fashioned way by hand will get the job done too! If your oranges didn’t produce 3/4 cup of juice, don’t worry. Mine didn’t either. Just add water to the juice until you have 3/4 cup of liquid. In a second mixing bowl, whisk together 3 3/4 cups of flour, 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Now begin to alternate adding the dry ingredients and the orange juice to the batter. Add a small amount of the flour mixture followed by a splash of orange juice. Go back and forth until all of the orange juice and all of the flour mixture has been incorporated into the dough. After all ingredients have been added the result should be a sticky, orange scented dough. Scrape dough into a bowl, snap on an airtight lid, and refrigerate overnight. The next day (or night) when you are ready to begin baking the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. While the oven is heating up, take the dough out of the fridge and beginning dropping dough by the teaspoon onto an un-greased baking sheet. I highly recommend getting a cookie scoop if you don’t already have one. It is a huge time savor and it’s great for cupcakes as well as cookies. Click here to purchase the one I used. Bake the cookies for 7-8 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Do not let the cookies brown on top. Adjust the times up or down slightly according to your oven and altitude. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for one minute before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. While the cookies are cooling, gather the ingredients needed for the icing. Orange Drop Cookie Icing

1/4 cup orange juice
1 tbsp. grated orange peel
2 tbsp. shortening
1/4 tsp. salt
Powdered sugar

Begin by beating the orange juice, orange peel, and shortening on a low speed. Be careful not to splash it all over your kitchen or you’ll have a big mess to clean up! After beating for a couple of minutes, slowly begin adding powdered sugar to the mixture. Keep adding powdered sugar until the icing is stiff enough to spread onto cooled cookies. Spread a liberal amount of icing onto cooled cookies. Fill an airtight container and get ready to share them with everyone you know.