Zero Waste Cooking Series: Citrus Sweet Dough with Jennifer Lapidus
Second Helpings Atlanta is hosting zero waste cooking classes throughout the month of April in celebration of Earth Day. By using ingredients you might otherwise toss, you’re keeping them out of landfills, which is part of our mission. Our “Zero Waste Cooking Classes” are sponsored by our long time partner, Mercedes Benz USA.
Our final “Zero Waste Cooking Class” of our April series will be led by Jennifer Lapidus of Carolina Ground! Jennifer is an acclaimed baker, miller and author of the soon-to-be-released “Southern Ground,” out on Ten Speed Press April 27. Her compelling read about regional milling features recipes by the artisan bakeries who use her flour, including Little Tart Bakeshop, Osono Bread and Evergreen Butcher + Baker here in Atlanta.
Jennifer will be teaching us how to make her Citrus Sweet Dough! This is an easy dough to make and it can be quite versatile. We will be using it to make simple tea biscuits and little sandwich cookies with orange marmalade as the filling, but you can also use this dough for a pie crust.
Following the theme of zero waste, the flavor of this dough is accentuated by the addition of dried, freshly ground mandarin orange peel. Since we are using the peel, we highly encourage you to seek out organically-grown mandarins. This recipe calls for a whole egg instead of just yolk, so you don’t have to wonder what to do with the egg white. Also, this is made as an ice-box
cookie, so one can make just the amount of cookies one wants at a time, leaving the remaining dough in the freezer and avoiding stale cookies that might end up getting tossed.
We will be drying out the orange rind before using it, so there is some prep for this recipe. Typically, you’ll want to eat two or three mandarin oranges over a week before making the dough as the rind can take about a week to dry, maybe more depending on your kitchen. Place the orange peels in a bowl and toss them daily so they can aerate and dry properly (and not mold!). If you are in a pinch, you can use an oven drying method. Simply spread the peel out on a parchment-lined baking sheet and place in a preheated oven at 200°F for 60 minutes.
Once your orange peels are all dried and prepped you are ready to start baking! Find the ingredients and recipe for Jennifer’s Citrus Sweet Dough below.
Citrus Sweet Dough
Ingredients
- 30g whole, unsalted almonds
- 200g Carolina Ground’s 85AP, stone-ground all-purpose flour
- 80g powdered sugar
- heaping tablespoon dried + ground mandarin peel, from 2-3 organic mandarins oranges
- large pinch sea salt
- 113g (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold
- 1 large egg, ideally organic/free-range
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- small jar orange marmalade
Directions
- Using a coffee grinder, grind dried mandarin orange peels into a powder.
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Spread whole almonds on a parchment-lined baking sheet and place in preheated oven for 12 minutes until a dark golden roast. Remove from oven and place baking sheet on a cooling rack to cool.
- Add flour, powdered sugar, a heaping tablespoon of ground citrus peel, a large pinch of salt, and cooled almonds to a food processor. Pulse several times, combining ingredients while also grinding the almonds to a semi-coarse to fine meal.
- Remove butter from refrigerator and cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Add butter to the flour mixer and process in long pulses, until the butter is evenly distributed and no larger than a pea.
- In a small bowl, whisk egg and vanilla extract. Add to a food processor and again, process in long pulses, about 10 pulses, until dough comes together. Dump the dough out onto a piece of lightly flour-dusted parchment paper, wrap and place in refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes.
- Once the batter feels cold, pull from the refrigerator and form into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Roll the log up in the parchment paper and place it in the freezer for roughly 15 minutes, until the dough is almost frozen.
For tea biscuits:
Remove dough from the freezer and using a chef’s knife slice the cookies approximately 1/4-inch thick and place 1-inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place in 350°F and bake for 14 to 15 minutes, until the edges are golden. Remove from oven and transfer to cooling rack.
For sandwich cookies:
Remove dough from the freezer and using a chef’s knife slice the cookies approximately 1/8 inch thick. Place half the cookies 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Using a 3/4 inch round cookie cutter, stamp out the center of the remaining cookies, and then place 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place in a 350°F oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges are golden. Remove from oven and transfer to cooling rack. Once fully cooled, spread orange marmalade on the solid
cookies and place the stamped cookies on top.
Enjoy!!