cherry and orange butter cookies

i know, i know - i've been a bad blogger as of late. life has been busy, mainly in that good way where you don't realize how much time has past until you look at your blog and realize there are two entries for the month and less than three times that many days left.

this weekend joe and i watched janessa's house and the keisha for her. sitting on her porch and listening to neighborhood sounds made me impatient for the house that we keep coming so close to - only to miss it by a day or a few thousand dollars.

tonight i am a bit too tired for anything real-life oriented, so instead i'm hiding in the kitchen with gatsby (he always seems to be the most affectionate when i'm covered to my elbows in cookie dough or soap suds, unable to really pet him). i bought the biggest bag of cherries they had at the grocery store and i'm now faced with creative ways of eating them. today : cookies (tomorrow : scones). The recipe is from The Sweeter Side of Amy's Breads by Amy Scherber. i made the cookies MUCH smaller (probably about a TBSP and a half) and round and then flattened them out a little by sticking a halved cherry on the top of each.

(there would be a photo here of said cookies if blogger wasn't so much like a turtle)

Orange Butter Cookies

(makes 15 cookies) - i made almost forty smaller cookies

1 3/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 2/3 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/4 cups sugar, plus extra for topping before baking

1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened

2 1/2 teaspoons orange zest, finely minced

1 large egg

2 egg yolks

Position one rack in the top third of the oven, one rack in the bottom third of the oven, and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with baking parchment.

In a bowl, add all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, and salt, and whisk together.

In another bowl, using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together sugar, butter, and orange zest on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. Gradually add eggs and egg yolks, mixing on medium speed until everything is well combined.

With the mixer on low speed, add dry ingredients in stages. Mix only until everything is well combined, scraping sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. There should not be any pockets of dry flour left in the dough.

Using a large soup spoon, a metal ice cream scoop, or your clean hands moistened with water, scoop out big balls of dough, placing six balls on each prepared cookie sheet. Use a scant 1/4 cup to estimate the size. Using three middle fingers of your hand, press firmly on the top of each ball to flatten it to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Allow dough to push up between your fingers so an imprint of valleys and ridges remains. If the dough is sticky, you may have to moisten your fingers slightly with cold water to keep them from sticking to the dough. Sprinkle tops of cookies generously with extra granulated sugar. They will spread a moderate amount during baking. Bake cookies for about 15-16 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through the baking time. The cookies should be pale but baked all the way into the center. They should be soft, but be careful not to underbake them or the centers will be doughy.

Cool cookies on sheets for 5 minutes, then remove them to a rack and cool completely before storing.

i had also planned on posting a very cute picture of edward after he created a small cave out of blankets and only his head stuck out - seeing as how i couldn't even get dumb blogger to upload the picture of a cookie, i didn't try on the edward picture - maybe later.