These Winter Wishing Cookies are the dessert that will keep you cozy, warm, and full of good intentions all winter long.
Why are Winter Wishing Cookies the book-inspired recipe for Grateful As F*ck?
If there’s one baked good I’m grateful for, it’s cookies.
Well, I’m grateful for most carbs, really. But cookies make me especially happy about life.
I did a lot of baking this past Christmas season since I was hosting a dessert open house, and I (re)discovered that baking (and eating, and sharing) cookies every day puts me in a good mood.
Grateful As F*ck is all about expressing gratitude for the life you’re living now. It’s also about building on that gratitude to create even more contentment and abundance in the future.
Winter Wishing Cookies are based on a recipe I stumbled across on Substack for Yuletide Wishing Biscuits. Along with flour and sugar and all that good stuff, you bake your intentions and gratitude into the cookies to ensure luck and fortune in the coming months.
Yuletide has come and gone, but it’s still plenty chilly where I live. That means I need some cozy and comforting baked goods to see me through until spring.
Everyone always says love is the magic ingredient in baking, but I think gratitude, hopes, and dreams can be tossed in there, too.
What flavor are Winter Wishing Cookies?
I’m using Winter Wishing Cookies as a way to embrace all the cozy spices that I love during the winter. The cookie dough contains cinnamon, ginger, and allspice for warmth, some vanilla for lil’ luxury, and some bright and refreshing orange zest to remind me that spring is just around the corner.
February is smack in the middle of citrus season, so it’s a great time to use some orange zest in your cooking and baking.
Winter Wishing Cookies use orange zest, but you could also swap in blood orange zest or clementine zest for a slightly different twist. Lemon zest might even work, if you’re that person who likes lemon with cinnamon.
What I love about Winter Wishing Cookies
Winter Wishing Cookies are basically a brown sugar cookie — a sugar cookie made with brown sugar instead of the traditional granulated sugar. The brown sugar makes the cookies a little more moist, a little more flavorful because of the hint of molasses in the sugar.
The brown sugar also pairs so well with the orange and the spices, making a subtly flavorful cookie. The more cookies you eat, the more the taste builds up.
You can serve Winter Wishing Cookies plain, or you can do some easy-peasy decorating by dusting them with powdered sugar.
If you want to be a little fancier, consider making my no-egg Royal Icing Glaze to drizzle over the cookies.
This dough comes together really quickly and easily, and it uses pantry staples that you probably already have in your kitchen.
You can make this dough, roll it out, and bake cookies all within an hour. It’s a perfect recipe for when you want to bake a quick and cozy after-school treat, or if a friend drops by for an impromptu visit.
Winter Wishing Cookies don’t spread in the oven, which means they’re awesome for cutting into shapes with cookie cutters. Make a snowflake, and it will still look like a snowflake when you take it out of the oven!
How do you bake “wishes” into Winter Wishing Cookies?
Okay, here’s where I’m going to get all woo-woo on you. First, read and work through the pages in Grateful As F*ck. Then you’ll have an idea of how powerful gratitude can be in shaping and redirecting your life.
As you bake your Winter Wishing Cookies, think about how grateful you are for everything in your life. “Sprinkle” that gratitude into your cookie dough as you whisk in your flour or beat in your egg.
Then, focus really hard on what you want to manifest for the coming months or year. Envision those intentions flowing down your arm, through your fingers and the baking utensil in your hand, and finally absorbing into the cookie dough as you mix it.
Using a stand-mixer? Never fear. “Sprinkle” your wishes along with the powdered sugar onto your work surface, then roll your cookie dough over it all to absorb the good intentions (and to avoid sticking!). Bake everything up with the best of intentions. Then, sit back and wait.
(Pro tip: nibble on some cookies while you wait for the magic to unfold in your life.)**
What do you serve with Winter Wishing Cookies?
All cookies are best with a good cuppa tea. Or, some coffee, if you’re into caffeine. Serve up a few cookies after a dinner of Grand-Mere’s Friday Night Chicken, Ziti ala Colucci, or Rosemary Maple Dijon Salmon, or as a mid-day snack after a lunch of Easy Ground Beef Gyros, Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwiches, or Quick Chickpea Curry.
If you like Winter Wishing Cookies, you may also enjoy Pfeffernusse Sugar Cookies, Spiced Walnut Cookies, and Totally Different Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Winter Wishing Cookies (Orange Spice Cookies)
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- zest from one orange
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp ground allspice
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- Gratitude for all that you have and all that is yet to come
- Your best intentions and wishes for the year ahead
- Powdered sugar for rolling (and for decorating, optional)
Instructions
PREP INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Zest the orange and set aside.
- Cut a piece of plastic wrap and set it aside on your work surface.
- Put a few tablespoons of powdered sugar in a small bowl for rolling out the dough later. Set aside.
BAKING INSTRUCTIONS
- Use a hand-mixer or stand mixer to cream the butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl.
- Beat in the egg, vanilla extract, and orange zest until combined.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients a little at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until all ingredients are completely combined.
- Turn the cookie dough out of the bowl and onto the prepared piece of plastic wrap. Wrap dough completely in plastic and freeze for 30 minutes, or refrigerate overnight.
- Sprinkle your clean work surface and rolling pin with powdered sugar. Roll the chilled dough to a ¼ inch thick, then use a cookie cutter to cut out your cookies.
- Place cookies about an inch apart on the prepared baking sheets, then refrigerate the baking sheets for about 10 minutes to chill the dough.
- Gather the remaining scraps of dough and repeat the sprinkling, rolling, cookie cutting, and chilling process again until all the dough is used up.
- Bake Winter Wishing Cookies at 350F for 8-10 minutes, or until the bottoms of the cookies are just starting to brown.
- Remove the baking sheets to a wire rack and let Winter Wishing Cookies cool on the sheets for 5 minutes.
- Transfer Winter Wishing Cookies to wire rack to finish cooling. Sprinkle cooled cookies with powdered sugar for decoration (optional).
