Orange Nutmeg Cookie with Citrus Sugar
I haven’t been back here in about two months. It’s for good reason though as I work to get my micro bakery, At Heart Panadería, up and running. Last week I signed on with a collaborative kitchen in Decatur, which will not only allow me the space and commericial appliances I will need to start baking on a slightly bigger level than what my tiny kitchen at home will allow, but will also help me get my food sales business license, all under one roof. It’s an exciting time for me and a scary time for me. I did not intend to launch two new projects this year; this blog and recipe work was supposed to be the main thing I focused on, however pan dulce had other ideas for me. Recipes are where I stop to pause a bit and take a breather though. I always want to do recipe work and will continue to share recipes on this blog (and hopefully for publications that will pay me!! I’m good enough to get paid for this!) for as long as I feel fulfilled and happy to do so.
When I had my now defunct online cookie shop, this was the first cookie I offered to people. I sold that cookie as a linzer filled with a simple chocolate ganache and it’s still one of my favorites to both make and eat and that’s because of the citrus sugar. For the conchas that I make now I usually always add a sprinkling of some kind of sugar after baking; I can’t help but add a bit of sugar jewelry to the pan both for additional flavor and just because I think it looks good. Traditionally pan de muerto is baked and then brushed with melted butter before sprinkling with sugar. Panaderas add creativity and flavor to their sugars by zesting citrus and grating spices into it, which got me thinking about how else I can use flavored sugar in bakes.
Don’t feel limited by citrus or spices by the way; try adding 2 tablespoons of dark rum, for example, to 1 cup of sugar. Stir the rum into the sugar until it feels a bit like wet sand. Let the sugar dry out completely on a baking sheet for a few hours or overnight until it hardens, then blitz in a food processor to make something akin to rum flavored sugar. From there I would suggest using the sugar to sprinkle on your conchas, pan de muerto, or even, yes, on a cookie after baking. Flavored sugar like this does tend to become a bit sublte in the oven, but it adds such great background notes to whatever recipe you’re using it in regardless. It is the ingredient that will make your bakes stand out.
The Kitchn has a recipe for Citrus Sugar where they toast the zest in a low temp oven before adding it to the sugar, no grinding in a food processor needed. (You probably don’t need to spend $30 for 16 ounces of citrus sugar from a vendor by the way.)
Some ways to doctor granulated sugar:
The aforementioned (and for which the recipe is below) orange nutmeg sugar
About two tablespoons of any citrus zest to 1 cup of sugar, and now I’m really excited about playing around with blood orange sugar once the season hits in December.
Freeze-dried fruit sugar (finely grind the fruit before adding to the sugar)
Any combination of spices for spiced sugar (the same way you would combine ground cinnamon with sugar to roll snickerdoodle cookies in; I love the sublte heat in ground ginger sugar, I’ve used a mala spice mix combined with sugar to make a mala spice snickerdoodle-type cookie )
I’ve used Demerara sugar a couple of times in lieu of granulated and my only gripe is that I can’t seem to grind Demerara fine enough. If that’s not annoying to you like it is to me, you could treat Demerara the same way you would granulated sugar when adding your flavoring, although I have not tested liquid (like the rum) + Demerara. The cookies photographed for this blog post have Demerara sugar sprinkled on top after baking, fyi.
Once you have your flavored sugar and your cookies out of the oven and they’ve cooled to the touch, you can choose a filling that will pair nicely. I made these cookies about two weeks ago for a friend of a friend and sandwiched them between honey almond butter and a dollop of red grape nutmeg jam. I’m not including the recipes for either of those because you can make these cookies (and any linzer/sandwich cookie) with any numbe of fillings; this is just a recipe to get you started. A dark chocolate ganache with orange zest would bring out the orange notes in the cookies; almost any flavor jam would work with this cookie, or you could just simply eat the cookies as is. These are also good to ship as a holiday gift or just because. Just pack them snugly in a cookie box set inside of a shipping box that is just slightly larger and pack with enough packing material so the cookie box does not shift much. Definitely make these cookies whenever you want to show off a little bit — they are that good.
Edit: I forgot to mention yesterday that if you don’t have almond flour on hand and don’t feel like buying any, it’s fine to omit it in this recipe and bump up the all-purpose flour to 300 grams (2 1/2 cups).
Orange Nutmeg Sugar
Yield: about 7.5 ounces sugar, a little more than 1 cup
Zest from 2 large oranges
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg or ground nutmeg
7 ounces (about 1 cup) granulated sugar
To make the sugar:
Add all ingredients to the bowl of a food processor; grind until very fine and citrus and nutmeg have been incorporated into the sugar.
Store in an airtight container in your pantry; shelf life is the same as unflavored granulated sugar. The sugar will clump together a bit in storage due to the citrus oils having been released during grinding; just stir the sugar with a spoon or fork to loosen again before using.
Orange Nutmeg Cookies
Yield: 24-36 individual cookies, depending on size of cookie cutter; if making sandwich/linzer cookies, yield will be about half that.
Active time: about 30 minutes, including time accounted for rolling out cookie dough
Bake time: 11-13 minutes
70 grams (⅔ cup) raw unsalted almonds
55 grams (about ¼ cup) packed dark brown sugar
240 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour
50 grams (1/2 cup) almond flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill Super-Fine Natural Almond Flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
8 ounces (2 sticks; 1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
50 grams (¼ cup) orange nutmeg sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
To make the cookie dough:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
On a quarter sheet rimmed baking pan or other small baking sheet, spread almonds in a single layer. Toast almonds until fragrant, about 8 minutes. Turn off oven and let almonds cool completely on the baking sheet.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder, and salt.
Using a food processor, grind the toasted almonds with the brown sugar until the nuts are mostly ground. Some larger and smaller pieces of almond are fine.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and orange nutmeg sugar together on medium-high speed until very light and fluffy, a good 5-7 minutes.
Crack in the egg and mix. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix until mostly combined.
Reduce mixing speed to low. Gradually add in the ground almond/brown sugar mixture, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined and the dough has become homogeneous.
Divide the dough in half and shape into disks. Cover each disk tightly with plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge for 2 hours or up to 12 hours/overnight.
Set cookie dough disks on your counter to bring to slight room temperature before rolling, about 10 minutes if dough was chilling for 2 hours; up to 45 if dough was chilling overnight (this helps to prevent cracks, makes the dough more manageable when rolling).
Preheat oven again to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface and with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out one disk to about 1/4-inch thickness (we’re making cookies here, not crackers). Give the dough a quarter turn using a pastry/dough scraper after each roll with your rolling pin, which will help you achieve even thickness and help the dough to not stick to your counter.
Using a 2-inch flutted cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as possible. Re-roll the scraps and repeat. If making linzer or sandwich cookies, these will be your bottom cookies.
Place cookies on one of the prepared baking sheets (they will not spread much at all in the oven so no need to space them out much).
Bake cookies for 12 minutes. The cookies will be a light blonde color and won’t brown very much; they will harden a bit as they cool. Transfer to a rack to cool completely after letting them sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes after baking.
Repeat with the remaining cookie dough. If making linzer/sandwich cookies: Using a 2-inch cookie cutter and a 1/2-inch cookie cutter for the center, cut out as many cookies as you can. These will be your top cookies. If you’re not making linzer cookies or just don’t feel like using two cutters, you can omit cutting out the center of these cookies.
Bake the tops of the cookies with a cut-out center for 11 minutes (13 minutes if you didn’t cut out the center).
Once the tops of the cookies have come out of the oven sprinkle with more orange nutmeg sugar, if desired.
Let cookies cool completely then fill with ganache, jam, etc.