Baking Christmas Orange drop biscuits for presents
Baking Christmas presents is something I got hooked since decades now. One of our favorite Advent bakes are these Christmas Orange drop biscuits. Its customary to bake during Advent to take our mind off the long cold and dark nights. Comfort food during winter is not something I feel guilty about.
I had to skip this routine due to time constraints a couple of years back. Instead, I just bought tons of chocolates and packed them in pretty Tupperware containers. Chocolates was the only present I gave to friends who came for the Christmas eve and Christmas day party. I also had no time to go shopping. I will avoid shopping during this time and rather hibernate at home and eat comfort food and watch cooking shows. This kind of presents was something not so personal and was lacking that special something in my opinion.
Homemade and handmade rises above all
Due to our dietary constrictions mainly because my daughter is gluten and diary intolerant, we are seldom enjoying any treats these days. I didn’t want her to miss out when her friends are eating all these goodies. This Christmas Orange drop biscuits happen to be her favorite. I had to alter this Christmas orange drop biscuit recipe by baking it with spelt flour. We just baked our Christmas cake about a couple of weeks back and its stored away for Christmas day lunch. You can visit my previous blog post to get the recipe for Eggless Christmas cake.
Over the weekend, we decided to start baking our Christmas presents. We are on a budget this year after an expensive India trip, so this was one of our presents to friends. More over I like to give handmade and homemade Christmas presents. Most of us are already overwhelmed with too much stuff and its easier to give food as presents.
2 Biscuit recipes- One of them Christmas Orange drop biscuits and the second Coconut & Oat meal biscuits
Orange is a hot favorite of most people especially during Christmas. This yummy flavor and aroma is a reminder of Christmas. Orange biscuits is one yummy biscuit which I bake almost every year for Christmas presents. This year I just reduced the quantity. I may probably bake some more over the weekend as we have already run out of them.
The other cookie I baked for Christmas presents was Coconut cookies. I have baked this biscuit a couple of years back and this has a really crunchy texture.
Since I was making large batches and 2 different cookies. I used Kitchen aid with the cake batter attachment. Beating butter and sugar is a tedious process but with the Kitchen aid
Involve your kids in this fun activity
Since my daughter was about 3 years old, I got her involved in this activity. I usually rolled the cookie dough and she helped me cut the cookies. We used a variety of cookie cutters which she liked. Like horse shape was a favorite of hers.
The easiest way I roll all the dough without too much of a mess is I use a Tupperware Silicon baking sheet.
Because conventional cookie cutters tend to have sharp edges which could cut a small child’s hands. So, I use Tupperware cookie cutters more often than the others. Now my daughter is old enough to handle these old cutters and she has fun in cutting the cookies and baking our Christmas presents.
My daughter made nice little packets of the Christmas cookies and gave her teachers. And she has been carrying for her snack time and sharing with her friends almost everyday.
Final notes
In order to save energy, plan ahead and prepare the dough so that the baking oven is constantly used till you finish the whole batch. Set aside around 3 hours or more if you do it with kids. It takes a lot of energy and concentration as they get easily distracted.
Play with the ingredients, as its a cookie things don’t go to a flop easily. I always tweak the recipes and substitute ingredients to suit our dietary needs and our store cupboard stockpile.
Preheat the oven to 190C / 375 F / Gas mark 5 Line or grease baking trays. Cream together the butter and brown sugar. Mix in the orange juice and the rind, mix well. Sift together the flour, bicarb. And baking powder, and add to the mixture, alternatively with the milk. Mix thoroughly. Drop from a teaspoon onto the prepared baking tray, 3 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. For the Icing: Mix all the icing ingredients together until you achieve a spreading consistency. Add water if needed. Cover each biscuit with a little icing and allow to set before storing into airtight biscuit tins. You can omit the milk altogether and make this into a rolled biscuit. Which is what I did. That way its fun for kids to cut and shape them.
Instead of all purpose flour, I used Spelt flour. It works well. 
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
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