Paleo Orange Spritz Cookies

Happy Holidays, folks! I don’t know about you all, but the only positive that I have been able to pull from this year’s Covid Christmas season is that I’ve had more time for holiday baking. In a normal year, I’d be so busy every weekend from Halloween to New Years, that I’d be lucky if I could find one solid afternoon to make a cookie or two and that would be it, but this year, I think I’ve baked at least 2 batches of something every weekend for the last 3 or 4 weeks. That means that I finally perfected the conversion of my mother’s Orange Spritz Cookie recipe (my perpetual favorite) to a paleo recipe. If I’m not mistaken, the original recipe came from Wilton in the little booklet for their electric cookie press back in the 70s or 80s. My mother would pull out that little appliance every year and make these cookies in triple batches so that we could share with neighbors and friends. You can find a modern version of the recipe that uses all butter and no shortening, but the original had both and produced a lightly crispy cookie (rather than chewy), which is what I always loved about them. Nowadays you can’t find the electric press, but you can get a manual cookie press from Michaels, or most stores that carry cake and cookie decorating supplies.

It’s taken 3 or 4 tries to get it right, but I’ve now used this paleo version twice with consistent results. Note that to keep it paleo, you should forego the red and green sugar sprinkles that the original recipe called for, but I won’t judge if you go for it anyway.

Paleo Orange Spritz Cookies

Recipe by paleosherryCourse: DessertCuisine: EuropeanDifficulty: Medium

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

10

minutes

My favorite holiday treat made paleo.

Ingredients

• 1/2 c butter (softened, but not melted)

• 1/4 c palm shortening

• 3/4 c maple sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 c almond flour

• 1 c tapioca flour

• 6 tbsp coconut flour (divided)

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 2 tsp orange extract

• 1 tbsp ground orange peel

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Mix almond, tapioca, 2 tbsp of coconut flour, and salt together in a bowl and set aside
• Mix butter, shortening, sugar, and egg in mixer until well combined. 
• Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture until all ingredients are combined.  Dough will be stiff.
• Add extract and orange peel
• Let dough sit for about 5 minutes and add the other 4 tbsp of coconut flour. 
• Let sit again another 5 minutes before loading dough into cookie press.  
• Press cookies onto parchment-lined cookie sheets (as close together as you can with the press is fine.  they don’t spread much).  If the dough isn’t stiff enough for the press, try adding another 2 tbsp of coconut flour to the dough and letting it get absorbed before trying again.   If it’s too stiff, you can add a tbsp of water.
• [Optional] add sprinkles to each cookie 
• Bake for 10-12 mins until edges look lightly browned. Cookies will crisp when cooled.