Turkish cOOkies

Turkish Cookies

These are the most Fattening, Indulgent, Damn gOOd cookies in the World, 

in my humble onion.

{yes yes, I am ToTally in the Turkish Cookie Cult}

Wait till You see the ingredients!
This is another of My Childhood past~times. My brother and I would get so excited when MoM said "We're making cookies".
One great thing about this dough is that you can play it like play doh. We would use everything from straws to cups to braiding the dough.  
And We would eat the dough along the way.
Over the last several years, it has become a Yulemas tradition now, for all the grandkids to go over and make a batch. 
 A BIGGG!!! batch.

I purchased this bucket of cookie cutters from ABC Distributing  a looooong time ago.
ABC doesn't appear to have them anymore, but Amazon does and it looks like even K~mart might. 
Wilton's 50 piece Animal Bucket. 
The Sheep, Cow, and Cat are my absolute FabFaves.

My Mom bought the Dinosaur and Heart & Circle sets.


The Sheep wins out for Santa's plate.

Turkish Cookies are basically a shortbread type cookie. They are made thick, so they have a cake like consistency. They aren't an overly sweet cookie, sweeter than a shortbread, but not like a sugar cookie. To Me, it's the very slight orange flavoring that makes it a Turkish Cookie  {and also that's what My MoM called them}.  
They are even more YummY the next day after the Flavors have melded, and the texture is perfect.  Now, this is another of the recipes that I've grown up with, so I know more by sight. And translation can be, challenging.


I recommend trying a smaller batch first to get a feel and taste for it. 
I recommend not giving it up. 
It really is worth getting to know. 

My mom calls this a 2 cup liquid batch. all the liquids equal 2 cups.  







Turkish cOOkies:

8 cups flour
5 cups sugar
2 cups eggs
2 cups milk
1 cup melted butter
1 cup oil {cooking}
2 tbls baking powder
2 tbls vanilla
1  to 1 1/4 tsps. Orange Zest


Glaze:
egg yolk
1/2 cup milk


.........like I said, this is a BIGGG! batch {4 families, 8 adults, 7 grandkids}


Mom says there is no order to mix, just put it all in, and start mixing by using your hands.

You want to Fold and Knead kind of together. You want the consistency to be, as she put it "the same as your ear lobe".  It works.  You will also want to taste the dough when you get it mixed for the Flavors. Is it sweet enough you can just taste the sugar? Can you taste the hint of orange? If you need to fix either, I would go about 1/2 cup sugar, with an extra tablespoon. Watch Your Orange Zest, I wouldn't go more than 1/8  tsp. and a pinch, because it will get overpowering and bitter.


Let your dough rest, cloth covered in the refrigerator for at least a 1/2 hour.
Grease Your cOOkie sheets, and preheat the Oven. 
Remember The Rule of the Oven:  Gas and Electric are very different.  Mom bakes her cookies at about 375 in her gas oven.  The electric oven next door had to go to about 350. Do a test cookie or two. You want a golden brown.  Some cracking can occur during cooking, its normal. And watch the bottoms so they don't burn. 

Put your rack in the oven middle.


Lightly flour Your area, take a nice handful of dough and and roll a few times with hands to smooth your dough, and then we just patty cake it on the  floured area. I would say the thickness is 1".  Using your cookie cutters, proceed to cut your stuff. Lay on greased cookie sheet ; make sure you leave enough space for the cookies to rise when they cook, about, um, 1/2". When the tray is full and right before you put the tray in the oven, brush the glaze wash over the cookies and put in oven.  As stated above, watch your golden scale. Once the cookies are done, remove from the tray and place on rack or plate to cool. Store covered when completely cooled.



and of course, EVERY year, everyone wants to eat MY! cookies and leave Their burnt wonky ones for Me.