Orange Dips

December 6, 2016

In 1961, these light, fresh-orange-and-sugar-glazed, tea cookies won Jo Ryman Scott the first-ever bake-off at Fairbanks, Alaska’s Tanana Valley State Fair, making her Grand Champion. Scott brought the family recipe–for which she credits Pauline Angerhofer—to Alaska with her from South Dakota in 1953. I visited her there in Fairbanks to learn about the cookies and her other Tanana Valley fair exploits. She says the flavorful secret to these deceptively plain-looking little delights, is dipping the fresh-baked cookies while still hot-from-the-oven into a mixture of fresh-squeezed orange juice and sugar.

Orange Dips

2016-12-09 16:22:24

Yields 6

Melt in your mouth fresh-orange-juice-and-sugar-glazed cookies

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Ingredients

1 1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vinegar
Orange Glaze Ingredients
1 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (about three oranges; or five clementines, or six mandarin oranges)
3 cups sugar
2 tsp finely-grated orange zest

Instructions

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, beating after each addition. Add vanilla. Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. In a cup, add vinegar to milk and stir to sour. Dissolve soda in sour milk. Alternate adding flour and milk to the butter/sugar/eggs mixture. Beat until smooth. Refrigerate dough for 3 hours. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350. Grease your palms with a little vegetable oil. Roll small balls of dough smooth and place onto parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes.
While baking, make glaze. Whisk together orange juice, sugar and orange zest. When cookies finish baking, immediately dunk in glaze and set on a rack over waxed paper to dry 1 1/2 hours. Flip over and let dry another 1 1/2 hours.
Once dry enough, store in layers between waxed paper, in airtight container.

Notes