2024-12-25 - Orange Cookies and festive thesis writing

Thesis update

As you can tell from the title.... I am still writing my thesis lol
But! I at least have 10k words already. Which means I can in theory finish it on time.
Not so sure about the game tho... I will do my best but it's such a small amount of time left. I think I will have to sacrifice some of what I wanted to implement into the simulation.
Btw, let me know if you want to read my thesis so far. Just DM me and I will send it to you lol (just keep in mind there's a whole section still missing) ~

Anyways, It's Christmas time! Merry Christmas.
I am not celebrating back home, still in Cologne. I am not celebrating at all, actually. But I am doing a couple festive things. I gave my neighbor lady a small gift - a crocheted doily and some sweets. I sent my cousin a book as a gift. I ate a bunch of oranges and pineapple. And I made some orange flavoured cookies! Which are actually really awesome?? The frosting makes these cookies, so if you attempt to make them, don't forget to add my recommended frosting (or any other, or even glazing them in chocolate would be good).

Orange Cookies with Ermine Frosting

For my orange cookies, I used two recipes: this orange cookie recipe and this ermine frosting recipe. For the cookies, I modified the recipe quite a bit, mostly replacing some of the butter with oil, and adding a little baking powder for a softer texture. The frosting recipe, I followed closely, just halved the recipe (which worked out quite well, as I burned some of the cookies anyway).
Further modifications and thoughts can be found in my recipe below.
Btw, both recipes are easy to turn vegan, just by replacing milk and butter with same amount of vegan equivalents :)

Tools needed: decent size bowl, cup to measure, teaspoon, hand whisk, cling wrap, knife, baking tray, parchment paper

Orange Cookies

Ingredients:

• zest of 3 oranges
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 150 g butter, room temperature
• 100 g sunflower oil
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2.5 - 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 0.5 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla sugar

Steps:

1. In a mixing bowl, add butter, sugar and zest of 3 oranges. Beat with a hand whisk until creamy and smooth.
2. Mix in the vanilla sugar and the orange juice well.
3. Add salt and baking powder. Add flour one cup at a time, mixing in between to see how much exactly you need. The mixture should appear slightly dry at first, but after mixing it a bit, come together into a supple dough and not stick to the walls of the bowl.
4. Separate dough into 3 parts, roll into logs (about 4-5 cm in diameter), wrap in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour (I left overnight).
5. Preheat oven to 180°C. Cut logs into disks, roughly 0.5-1 cm thickness, and place them on a tray lined with parchment paper (they won't expand too much in the oven, maybe just 0.5 cm all around).
6. Bake for 10-15 min, keeping a close eye on them. If you have a more powerful oven, it may take less time. Take out when they turn golden brown on the bottom edges and smell good. They should still be somewhat pale yellow on top.
7. Let them cool for at least 20 minutes before frosting.

Notes:

• Watch the oven very closely as they bake! They bake quite quickly. Check every 5-ish minutes.
• Cookie texture is crumbly and somewhat dry, so if you want chewy or gooey cookies, this is not the recipe for you.
• I lowered the sugar amount in my recipe, to accomodate for the frosting. Therefore the cookie itself is not very sweet, and with the addition of orange zest, even less so. If you like your cookies sweet, I would increase the sugar to 3/4 cup, or even a whole cup.
• If you don't like as much orange zest, you could only use 1 or 2 oranges. The bitterness will be milder this way.

Ermine Frosting

Ingredients:

• 100 g butter, room temperature
• 100 g granulated sugar
• 1.5-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (about 30 g)
• pinch of salt
• 0.5 cup milk (100 ml)
• 2 tablespoons orange juice

Steps:

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat whisk together the sugar, flour, and salt. Cook for roughly 2 minutes to toast the flour (keep stirring!).
2. Slowly add in the milk, whisking to combine. Whisk vigorously until the mixture simmers and has thickened and is the consistency of thick pudding. If you see lumps - just reduce heat to low and keep whisking until it looks smooth. Pour out into a soup bowl, lay cling wrap directly on the surface of the mixture and set aside to cool completely, for me it took about 30 min + 10 min in the freezer. (This mixture can be made the day before and kept in the fridge.)
3. In a larger bowl, beat butter with a fork or whisk until pale, fluffy and soft. (You can use a hand mixer but I don't have one right now)
4. Add in the cooled flour mixture one spoon at a time and whip thoroughly. Lastly, add in the orange juice and whip until the frosting is light and fluffy. Set aside until needed.

Notes:

• This frosting is light and not too sweet, so if you like sweeter, I recommend making an American buttercream instead. Royal icing would work well too, but I didn't have enough powder sugar.
• When making the cookies, the frosting is CRUCIAL!!!! If you don't add the frosting, the cookies just are not yummy.
• Letting the frosted cookies sit for a couple hours or overnight is ideal. But they can be eaten freshly frosted too.

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Soooo ye :) If you try the recipe, lmk on discord or send me an SMS.
I just finished exchanging gifts with cousin through video chat, my only physical gift this Christmas (others being monetary, or coming later than Christmas). She send me 3 different notebooks, a bunch of pens and pencils, and a book about houseplants. Honestly such a great gift :) though she did ask me what I wanted, and I gave her options either an encyclopedia about plants or a cool sketchbook or notebook. I am happy :)
Ok bye bye now, I will go make some meatballs for my Christmas lunch. And afterwards I will eat the cookies and drink turkish coffee with my roommate-neighbor :)

- Rita