Back in the 50’s and 60’s while on my dairy farm I would attend meetings given by Mrs Diehl who ran the Union county Extention office in Marysville Ohio.
At a pre-Christmas meeting for the entire county a lady brought orange cookies with orange icing and gave out a printed copy of her recipe. I have over the years some how misplaced that copy but my daughter Meredythe had written it down and gave to me.
Recipe
- 1 cup shortening (part butter)
- 1 and 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup frozen orange juice (thawed)
- 4 cups flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon soda (rounded)
- 1teaspoon baking powder (rounded)
- 1 cup buttermilk (can be made with I tablespoon vinegar and finish filling cup with milk)
Cream sugar and shortening, add eggs one at a time and cream, add orange juice and mix. Mix flour, salt, soda and baking powder and add alternately with buttermilk adding flour mix first and last.
On greased cookie sheet place tablespoons of cookie dough and bake in 350 degree oven until just barely done. Do not over bake. When I remove them from the oven I can just barely see my thumb print in the center of the cookie. I ice them while still warm.
Orange icing
- 2 cups confectioners sugar
- 1 tablespoon soft butter
- Add frozen orange juice (thawed) to spreadable consistency.
As I have done over the years I did revise this recipe from the original given me. I have now given you my secrets to how I make these (loved by everyone) orange cookies.
It has become a family favorite and often made for Christmas by some of my family. You have to be careful to get them out of the oven at the right time (like seconds before they are quite done) and ice them soon while still warm. When I was making them at my daughter Susie’s home in Lawrenceville Georgia, her step-son Scott was there and as I baked the cookies, he iced them. It almost needs two people.
Actually, he was having fun icing them. Whenever I made cookies or cupcakes, I always allowed my children and grandchildren to eat them while they were fresh from the oven and warm and he loved that little tasty favor.
When I was growing up, my mother would come to the home by my dad’s stone quarry where I lived with brothers and sisters and she would make a big batch of bread dough into several loaves of bread. I watched this procedure in amazement as the bread would rise to well above the baking pans before she placed them in the oven to bake and then enjoy that wonderful yeast aroma that filled the kitchen and beyond.
But the best part of all was after those beautiful loaves of bread were taken out of the oven, removed from the pans the golden tops of each loaf buttered and glistening. Because……..we were not allowed to cut them unto they were cold made me want more than ever to eat a ‘heel’ of that warm bread spread with butter. YUM!!!
I would always get a good scolding for my reckless actions. But that never stopped me. Those times are some of my best memories of growing up. I wanted my children and grandchildren to have some of those same wonderful childhood memories.
AND………THEY DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So when you bake these delicious orange cookies give your children and grandchildren the enjoyment of building good MEMORIES THAT LAST A LIFETIME!!!!!!!!!!!
FRF ♥