These lovely, fluffy cookies with clementines are the perfect reminder of upcoming holidays. Beautiful fruity fragrance combined with coconut flavour makes for a winning combination. Easy to make and they require just a handful of ingredients – so what are you waiting for!?
Back in Lithuania, we used to have clementines for just a couple of months. Grocery stores would start selling them at the end of November and they would be completely gone after New Year’s Eve. Each year, the first time my mum would bring a bag of these little balls of sunshine back home from the shop, I’d start a countdown to Christmas (one of my favourite times of the year). This is why, for me, Christmas and clementines are two inseparable components. They fulfil and perfectly complement each other.
Thinking about it now, it’s strange how childhood memories create our adult rituals. Stories and joys like these are so deeply engraved in my memory that even now, the appearance of clementines in grocery shops awakes my inner child. From this moment I inevitably start counting the days until Christmas, followed by opening a notebook where I turn to a new page and write the title: ‘Christmas present list for my loved ones’.
Sometimes it happens however, that the little inner girl takes control of this grown-ass woman. For example, this 30-years old woman cannot stop eating clementines! And I really mean it. All the self-control is lost. A 1kg bag full of this juicy, sweet, orange goodness isn’t even a challenge for me. It’s more like a nice snack while I’m watching a movie. At one point it got so bad that my body literally started rejecting clementines and I had an awful rash on my arms. So, in order to trick my body, I had to come up with some clever ideas to incorporate them into my pre-Christmas diet without ending up an itchy, scratchy mess!
One of the simplest and tastiest solutions was to use clementines in baking. These fruits are a little bit sweeter than oranges; this is why they are perfect for cakes, creams and cookies. They are very fragrant so the zest from just one clementine goes a long way, providing that nice citrusy kick for your bakes.
The recipe I’m about to share with you is very easy. Without chilling time, it will take you less than 20 minutes to prepare the cookies. You’ll find most of the ingredients in your kitchen cupboards already. I hope you will love them, because they are fluffy, soft and juicy!
If you don’t have clementines, you can use oranges instead. Or, if you want, you can swap them for any kind of berries or fruits – strawberries, raspberries, apples or even mangos can work perfectly. Use any seasonal produce in order to achieve the best result.
Recipe
Ingredients:
150g room-temperature butter
80g sugar
1 egg
4 clementines
1 clementine (zest and juice)
80g shredded coconut
300g flour
1 egg yolk
- Mix the butter and sugar until they combine. Add the egg, the zest and juice of one clementine. Mix everything together.
- Add the shredded coconut and flour. Combine everything and wrap the dough with cling film. Leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Take the dough out from the fridge. Divide the dough into multiple smaller sized balls (mine were 50g). Put them on a prepared baking tray lined with baking paper.
- With your fingers, slightly press the top of the dough balls to flatten them.
- Cut the clementines into thin slices and add the slices on top of the cookies.
- Gently brush the cookies with the beaten egg yolk.
- Bake the cookies for 20 minutes or until they are gold.
More sweet and delicious ideas, for your Christmas table:
Rich Chocolate Cake with Orange Cream and Chocolate Pudding
Chocolate Swiss Roll with Cherry Jam and Chocolate Ganache
