Easy Earl Grey & Orange Cookies

My friend Azia alerted me to the existence of this recipe a few years ago, and it’s been a go-to ever since. A fun part of this recipe is how easy it is to switch up the secondary flavor. Usually these cookies are rose water and earl gray, but the person I made these for is an orange lover, so I decided to swap a teaspoon of rose water for two mini oranges. You could make this recipe with a variety of flavors, like lemon or cardamom, or keep it simple! I also cut the standard recipe in half, to make a smaller batch of cookies, so this recipe makes a dozen cookies. I gave these cookies to my partner for Valentine’s Day, and they are a good go-to for any special one’s holiday or occasion!

You’ll Need:

• An Oven
• A Medium Mixing Bowl 
• A Rubber Spatula 
• ^ Or an Electric Mixer, hand or stand
• Baking sheet
• Parchment paper
• Optional: Cookie Cutters, Knife, Decorative Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Flour
• 1 Earl Grey Tea Bag
• ¼ tsp. Salt
• 6 tbsp. White or Powdered Sugar
• ½ tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 1 Stick of room temperature Butter (½ cup)
• Two mini oranges, or one big one (I just used cuties from the cave)

Directions: 

1. Add your flour, Earl Grey tea, salt and the zest of your mini oranges to a bowl, and mix until the tea is visibly distributed
2. To your same bowl, add sugar, vanilla, butter and the juice of your mini oranges. I literally just cut them in half and squeezed the juice out messily into the bowl. 
3. Use your spatula to press the ingredients together, smooshing the butter into the flour. It will be difficult and seem impossible at first but in a few minutes your dough will start to clump and form. This process is made easier if you own a stand or hand mixer, but alas, I’ve gone old school. 
4. Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and wait about 15 minutes for it to chill. If you want to make round cookies, roll your dough into a log before wrapping. 
5. Take this time to clean up your kitchen and get your parchment paper onto a baking sheet.
6. Once your dough has set, preheat your oven to 375º Fahrenheit 
7. Take your dough out and place onto a clean surface that has been dusted with flour. I put saran wrap down on top of my countertop too. 

• If you’ve chosen to make circle cookies, simply slice your log into ⅓ -¼  pieces.
• For Valentine’s Day, I chose to make mine into little animal shapes with cookie cutters, and used a knife to cut out imperfect heart shapes. If you’d like to use a cookie cutter, or cut shapes yourself, simply press your dough into a round, fairly thin disk. Again, this is made easier if you have a rolling pin, but hand pressing and smoothing your dough works fine. Cut your shapes out and place them on your lined baking sheet.

1. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges of your cookies are ‘golden brown’. Check half way through, if they’re done, take them out, and if they need more time, give them a few more minutes. Cook time depends on the size and thickness of your cookies. It’s ok if they’re thicker than ¼ inch, they’ll just need more baking time. No biggie. 
2. Take your cookies out to cool, and decorate however you’d like once they have! I kept it simple, just adding little beady black eyes to my animals, but feel free to make yours over the top.

Enjoy, and meet me back here for another installation of Dormiliciouse!