Easy Blood Orange Cookies With Citrus Icing
Blood oranges are one of the most spectacular coloured citrus fruits and have a unique sweet flavour. Make the most of these wonderful citrus when they are in season with our simple recipe for blood orange cookies. Enjoy them plain, or top with pretty pink blood orange icing for even more sweet citrus flavour.
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Blood oranges
When it comes to baking, blood oranges are one of my favourite orange varieties to use. Named for their deep crimson red colour, blood oranges give a beautiful red pink colour and sweet tart flavour to recipes. The falvour almost has a hint of raspberry.
If you buy store bought blood oranges rather than home grown or organic, it’s a good idea to remove any citrus wax before using them in this recipe.
Blood orange cookie ingredients
To make these blood orange cookies, you’ll need:
- 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of butter, softened
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 1 egg
- zest of one blood orange
- 2 Tablespoons blood orange juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 2 cups self raising flour
- Optional: pinch salt (if using unsalted butter)
- Extra 1/2 cup of caster sugar (for rolling)
For the citrus icing, you’ll need:
- 3 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioners sugar)
- 2 Tablespoons blood orange juice
Method
Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line 2 baking trays/cookie sheets with non-stick parchment paper. (I prefer to use compostable parchment paper.)
Place softened butter and caster sugar in a mixing bowl and mix together until light and creamy. (You can use an electric beater, or I just do by hand with a fork).
Note: I use salted butter for this recipe. If you are using unsalted butter, I recommend adding a pinch of salt to the dough when adding the flour.
Add egg and beat mixture to combine. Add vanilla, blood orange juice and zest to the creamed butter and sugar and mix well.
Gradually add sifted self raising flour to the mixture and stir until the mixture forms a smooth dough.
HANDY TIP: Place dough in the fridge to chill for at least 20 minutes before making the cookies. This makes the dough much easier to work with and will help stop cookies from spreading too much during baking.
Remove chilled dough from the fridge. Make tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough and roll in caster sugar to coat.
Place dough balls on the lined baking trays, leaving space between each to allow for spreading.
Place trays in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies start to turn golden brown.
Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely
To make the icing, combine 3 cups of icing sugar (confectioners/powdered sugar) and 2 Tablespoons of blood orange in a bowl and stir well to create a smooth icing mixture. Spread blood orange icing over the top of each cookie. Leave cookies on the rack until the icing has set completely.
Makes approximately 24 cookies.
Making ahead and storage
Blood orange cookies are delicious the same day as they are baked. They will also keep for up to 5 days in an air tight container.
You can also freeze these delicious cookies (without the icing) for up to 3 months. Alternatively, freeze uncooked cookie dough (that hasn’t yet been rolled into balls and coated in caster sugar) by wrapping tightly in non stick paper and then a freezer safe bag. Then when you want to bake the cookies, simply defrost the dough at room temperature for around 30 minutes before rolling into balls, coating with sugar and baking.
More citrus inspired recipes
For another blood orange recipe, try our blood orange loaf cake or make dried blood orange slices in the oven. Or for other ways to use blood orange, explore our collection of blood orange drink recipes and blood orange sweet and savoury foods.
There are lots more tasty citrus recipes to try on our recipes page, using lemons, oranges, limes, grapefruit, yuzu and more.
And don’t forget to subscribe for more citrus inspiration for your kitchen, garden and home.
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Easy Blood Orange Cookies With Citrus Icing
Equipment
- 2 baking trays lined with non stick baking paper
- 1 large mixing bowl
- 1 citrus zester
- 1 citrus juicer
- 1 wire cooking rack
- measuring cups and spoons
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup plus 2 Tables[poons butter, softened
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of one blood orange
- 2 Tablespoons blood orange juice
- 2 cups self raising flour, sifted
- pinch salt (Optional if using unsalted bitter)
- 1/2 cup caster sugar (extra) for rolling
Citrus icing
- 3 cups icing sugar (powered/confectioners sugar)
- 2 Tablespoons blood orange juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line 2 baking trays/cookie sheets with non-stick parchment paper. (I prefer to use compostable parchment paper.)
- Place softened butter and caster sugar in a mixing bowl and mix together until light and creamy. (You can use an electric beater, or I just do by hand with a fork).
- Add egg and beat mixture to combine. Add vanilla, blood orange juice and zest to the creamed butter and sugar and mix well.
- Gradually add sifted self raising flour to the mixture and stir until the mixture forms a smooth dough. (Note: I use salted butter for this recipe. If you are using unsalted butter, I recommend adding a pinch of salt to the dough when adding the flour.)
- Place dough in the fridge to chill for at least 20 minutes before making the cookies. This makes the dough much easier to work with and will help stop cookies from spreading too much during baking.
- Remove chilled dough from the fridge. Make tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough and roll in caster sugar to coat.
- Place dough balls on the lined baking trays, leaving space between each to allow for spreading.
- Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the icing, combine 3 cups of icing sugar (confectioners/powdered sugar) and 2 Tablespoons of blood orange in a bowl and stir well to create a smooth icing mixture. Spread blood orange icing over the top of each cookie. Leave cookies on the rack until the icing has set completely.
Hi! I just wanted to say that I absolutely love this recipe. I added some blood orange zest into the icing to give it a little sprinkle of red. My icing came out a lot more red than what you have in the photos, but that might be because I used a lot less confectioner sugar (I eye-balled it as I was icing a smaller batch. I suck at knowing how smooth/viscous the royal icing should be).
Hi Hitomi! Thanks so much – really glad you loved it! I love your idea of adding zest to the icing too, the more blood orange the better I say :)