Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance

FAMILY HEIRLOOM RECIPES

Illinois State Fair

August 13, 2021

 

 

Second Prize

 

Great-Grandma’ Martin’s Christmas Orange Creams

Joanne Belle (Jenne) Gunderson, Springfield, Illinois

 

Family Cookie Traditions

 

Holiday cookies are a tradition in many families and often they are warm spiced delights with cinnamon, ginger, and clove. In my family, however, the holiday cookie staple was always the Orange Creams. They were only ever made by my mother, Linda (Malloy) Jenne, in my memory, but the tradition of making them started long before with my paternal Great-Grandmother, Martha Aurora (Milgate) Martin.

We do not know much about the origins of the recipe other than at holiday gatherings for my Dad’s family, the Jenne’s, there would always be cookie and candy trays that featured the Orange Creams. According to my mother, my Dad’s grandmother would always make her recipe for orange cream cookies as a Christmas treat. My mother recalls that the first time she tried the cookies she loved them so much that she asked her new Grandmother-ln-Law for the recipe right away – and received it! This would have been sometime after she and my father were married in 1971.

 

*The recipe is written down in my mother’s hand in the recipe book she made when she was newly married. Her copy shows the wear of 50 years of making these cookies at Christmastime for the family.

 

When I got married, I made an attempt to gather as many recipes as I could from my mother and family. The recipe for Orange Creams was one I copied down straight away. In my years of making the recipe it has always been well received and certainly one of the more unique offerings among the Christmas treats people bring to celebrations. Some in my family consider it to be an involved recipe because it does use all parts of the fruit and it takes time to chill the dough. In my opinion, the effort and time is worth it because the result is delicious and makes a lot of cookies – it’s perfect for a Christmas cookie swap!

Finding the Orange Creams Recipe’s Origin

 

I have tried to find an origin for this recipe and to explain, or support, my suspicions for why it was always a Christmas cookie in my family. My Great-Grandmother, Martha Aurora Milgate, was a first-generation American and was born in Aurora, IL in 1889. Her father owned a general store where, I would imagine, like most places in this part of the midwestern United States oranges were considered a special treat that was only readily available in winter. Indeed, there are lots of stories about the tradition of oranges in Christmas stockings being rooted in the availability of that fruit during the holiday season and the specialness such a treat served during the post-depression time in this country. This limited availabilitymight be one reason why the orange cream cookie recipe became a Christmastime tradition in my family. I would think owning the general store also probably helped make sure a few came home as Christmas treats.

 

( have tried to find a similar recipe through research but have not been able to locate anything that exactly matches my Great-Grandmother’s recipe. The closest I was able to find was an undated picture of a newspaper clipping for “Pappy’s Old-Fashioned Orange Cookies” which attributes the recipe to a Charles A. Seese, who according to the clipping was a school principal from Barberton. I was able to locate someone by that name in the Barberton, Ohio Library records, specifically, in the January and June Barberton High School yearbooks from the year 1927! This supports my suspicion that the cookie recipe may have came to be during a time when the fruit was only readily available in winter and considered a special treat. A batch of Pappy’s Old-Fashioned ‘ve been a favorite with teachers at Hi* •hool In Barberton ever since Princiiiai Chari A. Seese served them at a faculty gathering.

 

Here’s his recipe: Mix together 2 cups sugar. 1 cup butter and 3 eggs. To this add 1 cup sour milk (or buttermilk) mixed with 1 teaspoon soda. After mixing well add the juice and grated rind of 2 oranges. Mix thoroughly. Add gradually 4 1/4 cups sifted flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Drop by teaspoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet.

 

Bake at 375 degrees until the edges of thek cookies are a delicate brown. Frost with icing jO d5j made by blending 1 pound powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons butter and the juice and rind of 1 orange. Makes

 

undated newspaper dipping from the website recipecurio.com which attributes the recipe to Principal Charles A. Seese from Barberton

This recipe also appears in a 2018 entry of the blog ‘There’s a Hippy in the Kitchen” and includes a recipe for “Pappy’s Christmas Cookies” a “Vintage Recipe from Aunt Faye’s Collection” which is identical to the recipe listed in this clipping.fn 1927 my Great-Grandmother, by then Mrs. Martha Martin having married my Great-Grandfather Dr. Ralph D. Martin, would have been 38 years of age. Perhaps she found the recipe around that time or perhaps it was a well-known “old-fashioned” recipe as the newspaper clipping suggests. Regardless of how or when the recipe came to my Great-Grandmother, by the time my mother came to know her the orange cream cookies were known just as my Great-Grandmother’s recipe and a Christmas cookie tray staple at the Jenne family gatherings.

Keeping the Tradition Alive

 

Orange Creams stayed a Christmas cookie tradition throughout my lifetime despite my Great-Grandmother Martin passing away in 1979 when I was an infant. My mother kept that tradition alive and is the only person I remember making the cookie in my youth and always at Christmastime. It was a treat my whole family would look for on the Christmas cookie trays every year.

 

Orange Creams are still usually a Christmas cookie in my family but can also nowadays also be a “we are seeing each other” cookie because we are not always able to get together from across the country at Christmas. We celebrate our traditions when we see each other regardless of the time of year, and the Orange Creams are an expected and highly anticipated part of those gatherings. I am thankful to my mother for helping me to know this family history and for keeping this family food tradition alive so that I can continue to share it with loved ones.

Mom (Linda Malloy Jennej and I (Joanna Belle Jenne Gunderson)

 

Second Prize

 

Great-Grandma’ Martin’s Christmas Orange Creams

Joanne Belle (Jenne) Gunderson, Springfield, Illinois

 

This recipe will require 2-3 whole Oranges and 1 Lemon, depending on their size. It is recommended when prepping the citrus to first zest the rind, then harvest the pulp, and then the juice (if needed).
The below recipe is what I have come to understand works best after years of my mother and J making these cookies at Christmastime. A picture of the original hand-written recipe taken down by my mother, as shared by my great-grandmother, and the version that I copied when I got married are included for reference.

 

Ingredients-For the Cookie:
1 Cup Butter
2 Cups White Sugar
2 Tbsp Heavy Cream
4 Tbsp Orange Pulp
3 Eggs
4 Tbsp Orange Rind (grated)
1 Tbsp Lemon Rind (grated)
½ tsp. Lemon Extract
1/4 tsp. Salt
4 Cups Flour
1 tsp. Cream of Tartar

 

For the Icing:
2 tsp. Orange Rind (grated)
2 Tbsp. Orange Juice
1 Cup Powdered Sugar

 

Directions
Cream the butter and the sugar. Add the heavy cream, orange pulp, and eggs. Beat well. Add the rest of the ingredients for the cookies and mix thoroughJy but lightly. Chill the dough for at least 5 hours or overnight.

 

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 300 degrees and grease cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper. Break off bits of the cookie dough and flatten them down into 1-2 inch disks spaced 3 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the cookies look dry and appears a light white color. The cookies will not necessarily brown much on the top or edges.
Cooled cookies should be glazed with the icing and left to set before eating. To prepare the icing, mix the ingredients together. The icing should be readily pourable, like a thick glaze. If it is a slow pour, add more orange juice until the proper consistency is reached. Keep cookies in a tightly sealed container until sharing at holiday gatherings.

 

Above: my mother’s handwritten recipe for Orange Creams from her original cookbook
Below: the recipe that I copied when I got married