Glorious citrus. It’s that time of year over here: beautiful, ripe, fragrant oranges, tangelos, mango and blood oranges, grapefruits and sweet limes in abundance on the store shelves. No, they’re not local, but they’re…kind of?…in season. In California. Anyway, I can’t let a January go by without at least thinking of making marmalade, though, admittedly, sometimes the thinking is as far as I get. And if it’s turning into that kind of January, I always take the lazy way out and make whole orange muffins, a recipe given to me by my friend, Anna.

And they’re great–tangy and light, moist with raisins and easy to whip up. Trust me to stuff some of those flavours into a cookie and then try and make them gluten-free. What?

 

 

These are not refined, elegant cookies. They’re granola-esque. Squat and burly. Maybe a little bit lumberjack. Bear with me if that descripton made you think of beards and sweaty plaid shirts. I decided to nix the raisins this time in favour of chocolate chips, because when is that NOT a good idea? There’s one of my new favourite flours in there too–pumpkin seed flour. High in protein and fibre, and that gorgeous green colour. And while you’ll see a bowl of chopped walnuts in some of the photos, I haven’t included them in the final recipe because they took the cookies to a lumberjack extreme and I didn’t think we wanted that. Not this time, anyway. There’s half a whole orange (sounds like a contradiction but it’s not) and enough coconut to give the cookie a nice chew. Homely, perhaps, but tasty business for a wet January in need of some sunshine.

 

 

Whole Orange Cookies with Coconut and Chocolate Chips

 

Adapted, sort of, from this recipe

*Note that you’ll need GF oats and other ingredients to make it truly gluten-free. That’s not a concern in my house, so I don’t  worry so much.

 

Ingredients:

1 cup oat flour (you can blitz rolled oats in the food processor if you don’t have the flour on hand)

2/3 cup pumpkin seed flour (you could try this too, though I bought mine pre-ground)

1/2 cup panela sugar (or brown sugar, though brown will make the cookies slightly sweeter)

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt (if using table salt, use less)

2/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup chocolate chips (or more if you like your cookies loaded)

1 egg

1/2 a whole orange, chopped roughly

1/4 cup grapeseed oil, or other oil

 

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a cookie sheet with parchment. Mix the oat flour, pumpkin seed flour, baking powder, salt and coconut in a bowl. In a food processor or blender (the former will work better), grind the chopped 1/2 orange until it’s fairly smooth. There will be bits of rind and that’s okay. Add the egg and oil to the orange and blend. Pour the wet ingredients from the food processor over the dry ingredients and stir to combine evenly. Then fold in the chocolate chips. Let the cookie dough rest in the fridge for about ten minutes to firm up a little. Form the slightly chilled dough into balls and place on the cookie sheet about an inch apart. They don’t really spread, so no worries about crowding. Press down gently on the cookies to flatten them a little.

Cook for between 14 and 16 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through. My oven runs a little cold, so keep an eye on your cookies, as they could brown more quickly than mine do. Leave the cookies on the sheet for a few minutes after removing from the oven–they fall apart if you try to lift them off right away. Once slightly cooled, move to a rack and cool completely. They’ll lose any tasty crispness if you store them in an airtight container, but they’re enjoyable regardless. This recipe makes about 12 cookies, though, so you may not have any for tomorrow.

 

XO

Ria