Almond and Coconut Flour Orange Shortbread Cookies with Rosemary Icing

Practicing my decorating skills again with this batch of shortbread cookies. 

All bagged up and ready for the mail!

I gave these as gifts this past Christmas and they were a big hit. Tender, buttery, and incredibly flavorful, this is a stellar cookie recipe that I can't recommend highly enough. I've made a variation of these before, and continue to tweek the recipe, but this cookie's backbone and inspiration comes from Casue Sweets, an amazing sister owned cookie company here in NYC.

I decided to make the icing with orange juice and fresh minced rosemary this time. It was really nice and subtile. A winner!

Almond and Coconut Flour Orange Shortbread Cookies with Rosemary Icing
Yield: 30-60 cookies depending on the size of your cookies. I got just short of 60.
1 lb unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed lightly
1 1/8 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup almond meal/flour
4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon orange juice
1 Tablespoon orange zest

I used my stand mixer for this recipe, but a hand mixer will work fine here too. Cream the butter and sugar on medium/low until light and fluffy. Mix in the salt, vanilla, OJ, and zest until combined. Add the almond and coconut flours on medium/low speed until well combined. Then, in two additions, add the all purpose flour, pulsing until just combined. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and bring it together. It should be just a tad crumbly (mix in more flour before turing your dough out if it seems too wet in the mixing bowl). Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes to an hour. 

Line baking sheets with parchment or siltpat and get your cookie cutters and work station ready.

Preheat your oven to 325. Take out a chunk of dough, about two cups or so, and put the rest back in the fridge covered tightly. On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a sheet about 1/3 inch thick. Cut the dough into your desired shape(s) and transfer each cookie to your prepared baking sheet (parchment or silt pat) using a spatula. 

The dough is delicate (i.e. sorta crumbly) but forgiving, so if it breaks, just patch it back together or start again. I kept rolling the scraps back into the next chunk of dough I grabbed from the fridge and the texture was still great (see, forgiving!). This dough also keeps it's shape really well while baking, so you can fit a lot of cookies on each sheet.

Once your oven is preheated, bake each sheet separately in the center of the oven for about 10-14 minutes - the edges will just begin to brown. Allow the cookies to firm up on the sheet for a few minutes, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely. This recipe holds up well both at room temp and after being frozen and thawed. 

ICING!

The icing I used for these cookies is based on the recipe for Glace Icing from the ladies at Casue Sweets. I reduced it a bit but the general proportions are very similar to theirs. First, I made a looser base icing that could be used to "flood" the cookies. I poured off about three cups worth of it and added additional sifted confectioner's sugar to create a thicker icing for piping. 

Cookie Icing
Yield: I had enough for about 60 cookies with quite a bit leftover. 
6 cups sifted confectioner's sugar (plus extra for thickening the icing for piping)
4 oz lukewarm water
1/8 teaspoon orange juice
4 oz light corn syrup
1 Tablespoon finely minced fresh Rosemary

Sift 6 cups on confectioner's sugar into a large bowl, or into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the water and begin mixing on the lowest speed with your stand or electric hand mixer, then add the orange juice and corn syrup. Keep mixing until everything is fully incorporated and the icing is shiny. It should be viscous enough that it runs smoothly off a spoon but not so wet that it looks like it would just run off the edges of the cookies. Basically, it should spread easily but not be runny. If your icing is too thin, simply sift in more confectioner's sugar a few tablespoons at a time until it looks right. If it's too dry add more liquid a drop or two at a time.

Separate out about 3/4 of the mixture for your "flood" icing and add the finely minced rosemary to it, then pour it into a squeeze bottle or tupperware container with a tight fitting lid, be sure to cover it well to keep it from hardening.

To the remaining icing, and just mixing by hand now, add more sifted confectioner's sugar by the tablespoon until the consistency is thick enough that it's difficult to stir. If you lift you spoon up, the icing should fall very, very slowly (slow glop). You want it to be thick so it sets up right away and creates a boarder to keep the flood icing in check. See my previous post for photo examples and let me know how yours come out!

Lamb and Turkey Meatballs To. Die. For.

Welp, it's been an age since I last posted. We had family in town for four months and between that, the little one, and the holidays, I've have put this here blog on the back burner in a big way. I've been cooking my fanny off, however, so I hope to give you some insight into the more notable culinary successes of this holiday season past. 

Well, almost past, because I decided to throw a party this weekend for my daughter's first birthday. Whooo Hooooo, looks like we made it! I'm not even decorating (just a pretty bouquet), or cooking much (we're doing fondue, kinda fun, right?!), or tying to frost a cake (powdered sugar, yo!). We're just letting the babies roam as they may and drinkjng some (spiked) hot apple cider! For Jon and me, this party is more of an excuse to have all the new folks/parents we've met since Freya was born over. And, as one of my new mom-buds put it, to celebrate having survived the first year. Happy Birthday, Freya!

So, THIS recipe, is one I made for Christmas eve as in my vaguely Italian American family tradition. It's an adaptation of one I posted a while back for Turkey Meatballs adapted from Molto Italiano by Marion Batali. The lamb was an accident, I was rushing at the grocery store and thought it was turkey, but I will never make these without it again. It's so good. Here's the adaptation along with a photo from the first batch I posted (we ate the lamb ones too fast to get a photo opp). They look the same but these taste so much more rich and nuanced. Yum!

Lamb and Turkey Meatballs
Adapted from Mario Batali's Turkey Meatballs from Molto Italiano 
Yield: about 30-40 small meatballs
1.5 lbs ground turkey
1/1.5 lbs ground lamb
1/2 -2/3 cup milk, any fat content you have on hand is fine
2 large eggs, beaten
2 1/2 cups bread crumbs or croutons
4 gloves garlic, minced finely
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced finely
1 Tablespoon fresh oregano, minced finely
1/2 Tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 scant Tablespoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to 475.

In a large bowl toss whisk the eggs and milk then add the bread crumbs, garlic, rosemary, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Let the bread get hydrated by the milk. Add the meat and gently massage it with your fingers or a wooden spoon. Your don't want to overwork the meat, but you do want to get all the lumps and knots of meat kneaded out, the two kinds of meat combined, and the whole mass worked into a fluffy (ish) consistency.

Gently roll a heaping tablespoon of the mixture between wet palms to shape. Be careful to use a light touch and not pack the meat together into a hard ball. Place each meatball just a little apart from the next in a casserole dish coated with olive oil.

Once the meatballs are all formed. Cook them for 15 minutes at 475. While they're cooking, make a simple sauce or doctor up a jarred one. 

After 15 minutes remove the meatballs from the oven and reduce the heat to 350. Toss the meatballs in the sauce and bake for an additional 45 minutes to 1 hour (read: braise!). Garnish with chopped parsley and Parmigiano-Reggiano and serve hot with crusty bread and al dente spaghetti. So good!!!