Olive Oil Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze
Now that we are officially into February — even though the store shelves were stocked with valentine’s candy the day after Christmas and I may have eaten an entire bag of cinnamon jelly hearts in the month of January – I’m breaking out my heart-shaped pans and cookie cutters. For those of us whose love language is food, what better place to show your love than in the kitchen.
I don’t let a Valentine’s Day go by without making at least one special sugary sweet. The first thing I made this year is a fancy schmancy adult take on sugar cookies from one of my favorite cookie queens Sarah Kieffer. I cut her olive oil pistachio sugar cookies into hearts, dunked them in a blood-orange glaze and dusted the corners with pulverized freeze-dried strawberries and pistachios.
Let’s take a moment to pay homage to the heart. Hearts are a joyful symbol. The heart shape is recognized the world over as a symbol of romantic love and affection, but let’s face it, lots of things are better in the shape of a heart. I gravitate toward heart-shaped items that make me smile: a heart-shaped plate painted by a favorite artist, a heart-shaped wood bowl lined in gold, a collection of glass hearts I bought in Cabo in brilliant blue and aqua colors, a planter decorated with gold hearts and an irresistible Hoya cactus that resembles a heart.
My favorite childhood Valentine’s Day memories include cutting out hearts from red and pink construction paper and pasting on those little white doilies. I remember getting a special message spelled out with conversation hearts from a classmate aka secret admirer. Once I had kids of my own, in addition to engaging in glue-laden crafts, I would serve a pizza or pasta dinner in the shape of a heart and we’d make buttercream frosted sugar cookies. Not a whole lot has changed. With just my husband and I at home, I still make heart shaped food in February … and couldn’t wait to make these cookies.
Olive Oil Pistachio Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze
I made the original lemon-glazed version of these cookies a couple of Christmases ago in the shape of trees and was quite pleased with the result. The valentine version switches lemons for blood oranges to make a naturally pink glaze. No red food coloring in sight.
Cookie ingredients you’ll need:
1/3 cup pistachios, pulverized/ground up (Buy your pistachios at Costco)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (I like Kerrygold European style butter – cheaper at Costco)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup olive oil (I used olive oil from Pineapple Collaborative)
1 large egg (Vital Farms is the way to go)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Full recipe from Sarah Kieffer
Blood Orange Glaze:
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
Zest of a blood orange
2-4 tablespoon of blood orange juice
Some notes:
You’ll want to plan ahead with these cookies as the dough requires a 2-hour minimum chill time.
The cookies puff up a little, so depending on your cookie cutter you may need to trim the top of the heart so it’s more prominent and you don’t lose the form. Once I cut out my cookies and placed them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, I just took a knife and cut the top of the heart slightly deeper.
After whisking together the confectioner’s sugar and zest, add the blood orange juice, one tablespoon at a time, until you have a thin glaze. I made the glaze in a shallow bowl and then dipped the tops of my cooled cookies into the glaze, letting it drip off and wiping the edge with a small metal spatula or knife.
For decorating, I pulverized (I like that word so I’m going to keep using it) about a ¼ cup of freeze-dried strawberries. Raspberries were my first choice, but my local store didn’t carry them. I also pulverized about ¼ cup of pistachios. It helps if you have a small food processor for pulverizing such a little amount. Then, before the glaze sets, sprinkle a little of the (pulverized) berries and (pulverized) pistachios on your cookies to your heart’s desire!
My blood oranges produced a really dark pink, almost red juice. Also I ran out of glaze! So I made a second half-batch with less blood orange juice and thinned it with a little water to get a lighter pink shade.
There you have it. Pretty pink heart cookies fancied up.
