See? Didn’t I promise you no more peanut butter? (well…not no more ever, just not this week. Don’t be crazy 😉 ).
I’m a super fan of citrus, so I might be a little biased here (I eat straight lemons (although maybe not? They don’t share their sexuality with me before I devour them 😉 ) as often as I can reasonably get away with. Which is why I will very likely be toothless before I’m forty. Well played lemons, well played.
But, you know, what other option do I have? I’ll just buy a lot of white Chiclets and replace my teeth for super cheap à la Dennis the Menace:
Doesn’t that look totally natural? Plus, if you ever get hungry, you’re mouth, much like a chipmunk’s, is now a storage location for future snacking! I think that rather than being considered a complete idiot for ruining my teeth, I should perhaps be recognized as the super genius and future billionaire entrepreneur that I clearly am. Just don’t steal my idea 😉 ) but these cookies were fantabulous. I’m actually 90% sure that they will be one of the new additions to my Christmas baking for this year (which is why I even tested freezing these – and FYI – they freeze great! So now you can make a googleplex of them so that you always have them on hand. Downside though? You’ll be dead long before you ever finish making that many which will be dually tragic. a) You’ll never actually get to try them, and b) I think you will have to use all of the world’s oranges, flour etc, so you will then likely be personally responsible for starving children around the world. For shame).
These cookies invoke so many things – they’re sort of like cakey cookies, filled with cakeball ingredients (for those of you who have never heard of or made cake balls, it’s essentially smooshed up baked cake, stirred together with a bunch of icing…so…basically the most delicious thing ever), sandwiched together with chocolate frosting, dipped in orange liqueur (or orange juice), and rolled in citrus-infused crunchy cane sugar (swoon). It’s got all the things! Texture, sweetness, citrusy-ness, chocolate, alcohol, creamy filling…..*Amber makes dreamy reminiscing face before quickly snapping back to reality* – WHY DON’T I HAVE ANY MORE OF THESE RIGHT NOW????!!! *sob*
Just look at those crunchy bits of sugar and orange zest, don’t you just want to jump into your computer screen and eat these right now? Of course you do, don’t try to deny it.
It’s actually always kind of funny to me that I say I love citrus in general, because (despite the punny headline for this post), I actually can’t stand most artificial orange flavoured things (so, Orange Crush kind of makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit when I imagine drinking it. It’s aptly named though in my opinion…because it instantly crushes any hope you may have had of it actually tasting like oranges). If you are a lover of artificial orange things, I have no idea who dropped you on your head as a child, but, be that as it may, I’m absolutely certain that you will love these even more (because how could you not? The laws of the universe just make it impossible).
Mmmmm….just look at that gooey center. Bliss. These are definitely infused with as much orange as I could possibly cram into them. There’s orange juice, orange liqueur, orange zest, orange extract/oil and orange marmalade. The only way it could be more orange is if you ate an actual orange (and frankly, even that’s up for debate 😉 ).
On a final note, here’s a little cartoon that speaks for itself:
Poor little banana, don’t worry, I love you too 💖.
Yield: 18 sandwich cookies
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 1/2 cup pastry flour
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or just do 3 cups all purpose if you don’t have pastry flour)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup cane sugar
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1 egg replacer
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- ¼ cup vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon orange extract
- 1/2 cup orange juice
Fillings:
- ½ cup marmalade
- 2 tablespoons vegan cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons icing sugar
- 1/4 cup melted chocolate
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
- 1 tablespoon icing sugar, sifted
- 1/4 cup orange liqueur
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- ¾ cup cane sugar
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat.
- Whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl, and set aside.
- Combine the sugar and orange zest in a large bowl, and either stirring, or using your fingers to completely combine together so that you have no lumps of zest.
- Add the egg replacer and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for a couple of minutes. Add the coconut oil, vegan butter, vanilla and orange extracts, and orange juice and mix on low speed until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, mixing on low between each additional until just mixed together (you don’t want to over mix). At this point, the dough, being more of a cakey cookie, will be more liquidy then a typical cookies dough, so not to worry.
- Wetting your fingers slightly to avoid the dough sticking to your hands, scoop out about a tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball and place on your baking sheet a couple of inches apart (the cookie will flatten and not stay in a ball shape, but that’s fine, that’s what you want).
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until puffed up slightly, and the very edges are just starting to brown (frankly, even if it’s not quite browning yet, I’d recommend removing them at this point). Allow to cool slightly before moving to a rack, or plate to cool a bit more while baking the rest of your cookies.
- In a small bowl mix together marmalade, cream cheese and icing sugar and set aside.
- Using a small knife, or even a spoon, cut a circle from the bottom of each cookie, and scrape out the inner filling. Be a bit careful doing this, you don’t want to accidentally poke a hole through the top, you basically just want to hollow out the cookie slightly. Crumble the cookie filling and add it to your marmalade/cream cheese mixture, stirring to combine. Place this bowl in the refrigerator, while preparing chocolate filling.
- Melt chocolate in the microwave (30 seconds to 1 minute, then just stir until fully melted). Stir in cocoa powder and icing sugar.
- Remove marmalade filling from the fridge and fill each hollowed out cookie with filling, then spread a thin layer of chocolate on top of one cookie and sandwich with another.
- Place cookies in the fridge to let the chocolate firm up slightly (not too long – about 5-10 minutes should be fine).
- In a small bowl, whisk together the orange liqueur and orange juice, place cane sugar in another small bowl.
- Remove cookies from the fridge, dip about 5-6 cookies in the orange juice/liqueur mixture and place on a cookie sheet before rolling in your bowl of sugar to completely coat (basically you want the cookies to slightly dry before dipping in sugar).
- Repeat until all the cookies are done.
- Store at room temperature, or in the refrigerator if you need them to last longer.
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