Baking with kids: Simple, light, melt in the mouth orange flavored cookies with a hint of ginger along with some sweet time with the gals.
Summer has almost come to an end. The new school year starts soon, and I am having the blues. The girls will be back to school. We had a splendid holiday. Busy with lots of activities, but sometimes doing sweet nothings together.
There are some very special times I am so going to miss. Sometimes we packed our lunch, ate in the car on the way back from the swim lessons (wish we could go park but it is Texas heat!) and went shopping.We lazed around in the afternoons, doing nothing but being silly and playing princess,mommies and dolls. I cooked their favorite food and had long relaxed lunch which we are going to miss so much. It was sweet life with late mornings, naps and late nights, lots of cuddle times and most of all just being together all day.
Then there was baking on whims. These cookies were baked on a morning when we decided it would the cookies even before lunch. Out came the books (I am still not there where I can whip up a baking recipe out of my head-getting the proportions right make my head swim) and we picked an easy recipe for the girls were going to “help”, made sure we had everything to adapt the recipe to our needs and we started. The recipe was for lavender flavored cookies; we did not have the lavender so the flavor needed to be adjusted. We decided on orange and ginger.
The girls helped me measure, whisk, roll and cut – a lot of help indeed.
Shortbread Cookies are Scottish in origin. In the most basic form, it requires only four ingredients – flour, sugar, butter and vanilla; the ingredients one would always have at home. That makes the shortbreads the easiest cookies to bake. No eggs or leavening is required and it takes only a few minutes before you can munch on the cookies straight out of the oven.
Orange Ginger Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients: (Makes about 15 cookies)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 4 tablespoons orange zest
- 2 tablespoons crystalline ginger
- 4 oz butter at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons milk or as much/as little needed to pull the flour into a dough
- 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
Preparation:Process the sugar, ginger and the orange zest in a blender or food processor until very fine.
Take 1/4 cup sugar and butter and process/whisk till fluffy (save the rest of the orange + ginger sugar to sprinkle on the top of the cookies).
Add the milk and whisk some more. Remove it in a mixing bowl.
Sift in the flour slowly to this mix and beat until the mixture forms a stiff dough. The dough is going to kind of tight, little sticky and greasy.
Pre heat oven to 300 degree F.
Place the dough in between parchment papers and roll it out with a rolling pin to about 3-5 mm(1/8-1/4 inch) thick.
Remove the top parchment and place the cookie cutter (we used the tulip and a circle) on the rolled dough and press it down/stamp it out. Cut/stamp as close to each other as you can.
Remove the shaped cookies and transfer them on the baking sheet.
Gather the dough into a ball and roll, re knead and cut/stamp again till you have used up all the dough.
Prick the cookies with a fork, sprinkle some of the orange ginger sugar on the top and bake in the oven for about 12 minutes or until pale golden in color.
Let cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe adapted from the book “Perfect Baking” – the recipe is “Lavender Cookies”.
Here are the cute tulip cookies for my 2 princesses, who brings enormous joy, plenty of smiles and gives me the inspiration to live.
Being the simpliest form of cookies to bake, they were delightful and were gone by early evening. While these were getting baked, DD1’s best friend came along, and they all hung around the kitchen waiting for the cookies to get done. It is a hearty pleasure to see the kids taking pride in doing it by themselves and eating the warm cookies straight out of the oven.
Related Posts:
Apricot Ginger and Pistachio Scones
Speculaas – Dutch Spice Cookies
the tulip shaped ones are super cute!
So cute! What a great recipe to work with kids!
Lovely flavor!
Cheers,
Rosa
thnks for the recipe looks delicious
Awww, what a sweet time with the little girls. My hugs to your princesses Soma. I hope you have more wonderful time with them.
We had been to Central market yesterday and I was relishing their orange cranberry cookies and I was planning to try it on my own. You have given me idea! thanks
Soma I can feel how much must be njoyed….the days with the lil ones passes too fast …the cookies look fab….
uppppppppppps…..pls delete my first comment…full of typing mistakes….
Soma I can feel how much you all must be njoyed….the days with the lil ones pass too fast …the cookies look fab….
Soma, can tell from the way they look that they are delicious and melt in the mouth type. Will bake this with the kids, they will be thrilled.
The idyllic summer has come to an end. It bothers me in more ways than one.
Nice take on a basic shortbread recipe and it sounds like you had a wonderful summer 🙂
Scrumptious cookies, I would love the hint of ginger!
How sweet….. the tulip cutter is really cool..:)
The joy of having girls. They do sound like they are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. The cookies look delicious and I could imagine the girls, hanging around the kitchen waiting for the cookies to be done. Only if my boy was more like that. Nowadays, he prefers eating the chocolate chips to cookies!
Hi!
the recipe looks delicious. thnks for the recipe.the cookies look fab….
Lovely flavor!
all cookies looks so perfect …thanks for sharing
Satya
http://www.superyummyrecipes.com
Would have loved to make these beautiful cookies with my niece who was here for a few days – was laid up unfortunately and had to rest. Will file away to bake with my daughter
such a great recipe to work with kids. I am going to try it with my niece and nephews when they visit next.
gng to bake these,.;-)
thanks its yum will post it soon,i overbrowned it,,,:-(
Thanks for trying it Priyanka. I guess these cookies are very easy to overbrown:-) They look pretty much uncooked when they are actually done. I hope they were at least edible.
These look and sound so tasty and great fun to make with kids. I don’t have any yet but maybe I can invite the neighbors’ hehe.
So cute, lovely flavours!
I was wondering if it would be okay if I used your pics and recipes for a personal cookbook? I’m saving internet recipes on my flash drive for future use. They won’t be sold or anything! And you will definitely be given credit! If I ever decide to do anything with them you will definitely be contacted! So many just look so good!! I can’t wait to try them!
Orange and ginger is a perfect balanced combination for cookies. Of course kids will love them!
All the best,
Gera
These look mouthwatering! Orange and ginger all melting with the cookie, YUM!
Soma,
Cookies looks so delicious and it feels so good to be having a daughter around.Give hugs to your cuties from my sides.
hugs and smiles
hi there
heres the link of the cookies
http://asankhana.blogspot.com/2010/08/orange-ginger-shortbread-cookies-from.html
these look so fabulous Soma!
ooh – this look lovely!
I’m putting this recipe in my to be baked for christmas-pile 🙂
Thanks!
Delicious soft and mouth watering 🙂 just tried and kids LOVE it !!!!