Wonderfully fragrant with citrus zest and juice, these blood orange almond icebox cookies are a fancy version of slice and bake cookies dipped in icing.
I love when citrus fruit is meticulously arranged in pyramids at the grocery.
It makes you feel guilty when you put a few in your cart and you mess up the whole thing.
Of course the point of the beautiful display is to tempt shoppers, so I assume the produce people don’t mind filling in the gaps.
Just be sure not to take one from the middle and cause a crash of fruit on the floor!
Lately, I’ve been snacking on oranges. I like buying a few different varieties and sampling them.
They are good on their own or even in a salad with arugula, endives goat cheese and smoked almonds.
It had been a while since I baked anything with oranges. When it comes to citrus and sweets, I usually reach for lemons or limes first.
The oranges that always get my attention are blood oranges. At first glance, they seem like any other orange except when you look more closely you can see hints of their gorgeous ruby color peeking through the peel.
Earlier this winter I made a citrus compote with blood oranges to go with gingerbread waffles, but this time I wanted to really incorporate them, zest and juice, into a dessert.
I ended up baking blood orange almond icebox cookies.
Icebox cookies are basically from-scratch slice and bakes. It’s great because you can make the dough ahead of time and bake them later. You even can freeze it.
First, I creamed the butter and sugar along with almond extract for the dough.
Then I lowered the mixer speed to add the flour and orange zest. I folded in sliced almonds.
The dough was crumby and very fragrant with nuts and orange.
I shaped the dough into a rectangular log and let it chill in the freezer. Once it was firm, I sliced off 1/4-inch thick cookies and placed them on a sheet pan.
I baked the cookies until they were just a bit golden. That could have been it, but I wanted to use the juice from the blood orange.
When the cookies cooled, I whisked together blood orange icing and smeared it on half of each cookie.
You could definitely do a full dunk into the icing, but I like seeing the pattern of the almonds in the cookies.
PrintWonderfully fragrant with citrus zest and juice, these blood orange almond icebox cookies are a fancy version of slice and bake cookies dipped in icing.
Adapted from Everyday Food July/August 2006
Love these cookies!
★★★★★
I made your recipe for my bookclub -everyone raved about how wonderful they were. Maybe the best cookies I’ve ever made, plus they were easy. I especially liked that I could make the dough ahead. Thanks you!
While these cookies did come out great….the amount of blood orange, in my opinion, needs to be increased. It’s way to subtle. Just tastes like an almond cookie. Which is still great! But I was hoping for more of the blood orange taste. Also, pics of your personal process of the molding of the dough and cutting of the cookies would be appreciated.
★★★★
Thank you for this inspiring receipe! I love blood oranges, and I love to bake. I haven’t tried this yet, but I have the idea that this will come in tasty and handy when blood oranges are in season in this country.
XXX.- Love from the Netherlands. (A small country in western Europe.)
★★★★
These look delicious and I’m looking forward to making these! I don’t see the measurement for the sliced almonds. Would you please add that to the recipe? Thank you!
Thanks for catching that! I just updated the recipe. It is 3/4 cup sliced almonds.