Michael made his very first batch of marmalade. He wasn’t prepared for how much marmalade comes out of just a few Seville oranges. Half of the marmalade was refrigerated for 24 hours before being canned, the other half was refrigerated for 48 hours. The 48-hour marmalade has a lot more depth of flavor and more bitterness than the 24-hour marmalade. I started looking for marmalade recipes for our sudden abundance of marmalade, and came across one for marmalade cookies. I skipped the icing. The cookies are more cake-y than I usually like, but it works with the bite of the marmalade.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup orange marmalade
- 1 tbsp lemon or orange liqueur (optional)
Preheat oven to 300°F.
In a medium bowl, Whisk together the dry ingredients.
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time, stirring after each to incorporate. Add half of the dry ingredients, then the marmalade, and then the final half of the dry ingredients, stirring after each to incorporate. Refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes.
On a parchment-lined cookie sheet, drop a scant teaspoonful of cookie dough. Bake for approximately 20 minutes per cookie sheet, turning the cookie sheet halfway through the baking.
Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.
Experiments
13 Sept 2015: I wanted more marmalade flavor, so I tried doubling the marmalade. They taste good, but they flattened as they cooled. I think I’ll try again, but replacing half the butter with shortening. There’s also some great thoughts in this thread for more ideas.
26 Feb 2018: I tried this with strawberry jam (6 3-ounce jars), and with the shortening/butter ratio that I listed in Sept 2015. This worked out really well: the cookies didn’t spread. However, the cookies also turned out really sweet. Cut back on the sugar to 3/4 cup next time.
29 Jan 2019: I tried out bar cookies based on this. I doubled the marmalade, replaced half the butter with shortening, and added 2 cups of chocolate chips. It baked in a 13×9 pan at 300 for about 45 minutes (more or less, honestly I wasn’t keeping track). This was a great variation, and tasted even better the next day, so deserves some more time playing with it to get it right.