Grandma Brubaker’s Orange Cookies — The Cookies That Do Political Work

The lake was doing what the lake does this week: changing color hourly, sometimes by the minute, the way grief does. Iron gray at dawn. Steel blue by ten. Almost green by noon when the sun broke through. Pewter again by four. Black by six. I walked the lakefront with Sven on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday, and the lake was different every time, and the lake was the same every time, and both things are how it works. Jakob (Anna's middle, recently graduated) has a job. He hates the job. He is figuring it out. He called me Tuesday for advice. I told him: that is what your twenties are for. The first job is supposed to be unsatisfying. The first job teaches you what you do not want. He said, "Grandma, that is not super helpful." I said, "It is the truth. Helpful is not always the same as comforting." He laughed. He hung up. He kept the job for now. He will figure it out. Lena (Anna's youngest, college freshman) is in college now. She calls me sometimes. The calls are about boys, mostly. I listen. I do not give advice. I am eighteen-year-old's grandmother. My credibility on boys is suspect at best. I tell her the kinds of things a grandmother is supposed to tell her: be careful, be brave, trust your gut, do not date the one who reminds you of someone you do not like. She thinks I am wise. I am, in fact, just old. The two get confused sometimes in the right direction. I cooked Cherry pie this week. Door County cherries when the road trip happens. Tart cherries, sugar, a touch of almond extract, butter-and-lard crust. Served warm. Thursday at Damiano. I brought a tray of pepparkakor — the second batch from the Christmas freezer, brought back to crispness in a low oven. They were eaten in fifteen minutes. The cookies are not the soup. The cookies are the extra. The extra is the message: you are worth the effort of cookies. Most of the world does not give the people who come to Damiano the message that they are worth the effort of cookies. The cookies are doing political work. I dreamed about Paul last night. The dream was specific: we were at the lake, in the canoe, fishing for trout. He was teaching me the right way to cast (he was always trying to teach me; I never quite got the rhythm; I caught fish anyway, by accident, with embarrassing regularity). In the dream he was patient and present and entirely himself. I woke up at 4 AM. I made coffee. I sat in the kitchen. The dream was a visit. I have learned to receive the visits without reaching for them. They come when they come. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. The seasons in Duluth are unsubtle. The winter is long and white and dark. The spring is reluctant. The summer is glorious and brief. The fall is brilliant and quick. The unsubtlety is a kind of honesty. The seasons do not pretend to be other than what they are. They give you what they give you. They take what they take. The kitchen, in response, does what it does — soup in winter, salads in summer, pies in fall, bread always. It is enough.

The pepparkakor went fast at Damiano — fifteen minutes, the whole tray — and I have been thinking all week about what the next batch ought to be. Something bright, something that carries well on a cold morning, something that tastes like someone took time. Grandma Brubaker’s orange cookies are exactly that: a soft drop cookie with a thin citrus glaze, the kind of recipe that has been passed between church ladies and grandmothers for a hundred years for a reason. The cherry pie was for the kitchen. These are for the people.

Grandma Brubaker’s Orange Cookies

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 48 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup fresh orange juice (about 1 large orange)
• 1 tbsp finely grated orange zest
• For the glaze: 2 cups powdered sugar, 3–4 tbsp fresh orange juice, 1 tsp orange zest

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add wet ingredients. Beat in the egg, then mix in the sour cream, orange juice, and orange zest until well combined.
5. Combine. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until just incorporated — do not overmix. The dough will be soft and slightly sticky.
6. Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the tops look dry but not browned. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
7. Make the glaze. Whisk together powdered sugar, orange juice (start with 3 tbsp, add more for a thinner glaze), and orange zest until smooth.
8. Glaze. Once cookies are fully cooled, spread or drizzle glaze over each cookie. Let set 15 minutes before stacking or transporting.

Nutrition (per cookie)

Calories: 90 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 45mg