Bright yellow cracked cookies. Bright yellow cookies sprinkled with powdered sugar lie on baking paper in rows.

Dessert+baking

Orange Crinkle Cookies

Prep Time: 10 min / Cook Time: 10 min / Total Time: 20 min

I absolutely love these treats – they're soft and subtle, making each mouthful simply dissolve on your palate. The orange taste is incredibly powerful and aromatic, creating a delightful sensation.

Author and photographs: Olga

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The little secret to getting perfect cracks is to dip the cookies in sugar 3 times. 1 time in sugar and 2 times in powdered sugar. Then your cookies will be perfect. I didn’t know this before and the powder on top managed to melt during baking!

Orange Crinkle Cookies

Yield: 10 cookies

Ingredients

Cookie dought

75 g granulated sugar
zest of 1 orange
35 g unsalted butter, mild
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
1 medium egg
1 tbsp orange juice (freshly squeezed)
70 g flour
50 g almond flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

For rolling the cookies

50 g granulated sugar
50 g powdered/icing sugar

Instructions

Preparing the Cookie Dough:

In a large bowl, combine sugar and orange zest. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingertips, which helps release more essential oils from the zest.

Incorporate the mild butter and vanilla, whisking until well mixed. Whisk in the egg.

Stir in the orange juice until the mixture is smooth. Blend the flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. Then, incorporate these dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Stir everything together using a spatula until you achieve a smooth, batter-like consistency for the cookie dough.

Note: The dough will be quite soft, sticky. Resist the urge to add more flour – this is the desired consistency.

Refrigerate the dough for a minimum of 2 hours, or even overnight if you plan to bake the cookies the next day. This chilling step is crucial for handling the dough and preventing the cookies from flattening excessively during baking.

Cookies with cracks are cut. Cookies with cracks are cut. They are on a plate. Texture visible. The lights from the Christmas tree are visible in the foreground.

Shaping :

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Form the chilled dough into balls, using about 1 tablespoon for each. You should end up with about 10-12 cookies.

Roll each ball first in granulated sugar, then in powdered sugar, ensuring it's completely coated. Put aside, then cover one more time each cookie in powdered sugar. This triple coating yields a beautiful cracked pattern on the baked cookies.

Baking the Cookies:

Arrange the cookie dough balls spacing them about 4-5cm apart. Bake cookies (180ºC) for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should rise and form rounded mounds with a cracked sugar coating. They're done when the cracks appear dry, not wet or shiny.

The cookies will be quite soft when removed from the oven. Let them cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.