It is almost King’s day here in The Netherlands and the whole of Amsterdam will be transformed into a giant flea market to celebrate King Willem Alexander’s birthday. Everyone opens a little stand in front of their house and fanatic sellers will try to occupy the best locations in town by camping out on the pavement the night before. I will not go that far, but I might try to sell some of my orange cookies. These crunchy crosses are my variation of the classic champurrada cookie from Guatemala. I mixed some orange zest and rosemary through the dough and filled the cookies with orange marmalade. It gives these cookies a slightly bitter edge and makes for a nice adult taste. If you have a sweeter tooth or want to please your children you could always use apricot jam instead. I might try to sell both versions and see which one sells best!
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Orange marmalade cookie
For about 15 cookies
110 grams (1 stick) butter
90 grams (½ cup) sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
225 grams (1½ cups) flour
100 grams (½ cup) cornflour
½ teaspoon baking powder
zest of 1 organic (unwaxed) orange
1 sprig of rosemary, chopped + extra for garnish
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons orange marmalade
Beat the butter with the sugar with an electrical mixer for about 5 mins. until light and creamy.
Beat in the egg and the egg yolk.
Add the flour, the cornflour, the baking powder, ¾ of the finely chopped orange zest, the chopped rosemary and the salt.
Knead into a soft dough.
Roll out the dough to ¼ cm / ⅛ inch between two pieces of cling film. Leave to firm up in the fridge for 10-15 mins.
Take from the fridge and cut out shapes with a cookie cutter. Cut out a little circle in the middle of half of the cookies. I used an apple corer. Bring the remaining dough together, roll out again, cut out cookies and repeat until all the dough is used.
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet covered with baking paper.
Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for about 20 mins. until light brown and done. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.
Spread some marmalade onto the middle of the cookies without a hole and cover with a cookie with a hole. Garnish with the orange zest and some rosemary.
This post is also available in: Dutch