The holidays are coming and that means acres of oranges will enter our homes to grace tables, bob in punches and add tang to cider. Orange Nuts, hard biscuits with a strong citrus flavor are the perfect, Civil War Era thing to compliment gingerbread, cider or tea. They are also a great way to use up all of those otherwise wasted peels.
Orange Nuts are a variety of Ginger Nuts, a recipe still popular today. Click the link to see the ginger nuts recipe I made last Christmas! This recipe was also printed in Godey's Lady's Book and Peterson's Magazine in 1865 and was still being published verbatim in 1883.
Civil War Era Orange Nuts Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Cups Flour
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 3 Eggs
- 2-4 Orange Peels, zested
- 2-4 Lemons Peels, zested
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix sugar and eggs in a large bowl and beat for 15 minutes. Add flour and zest and mix until fully combined. Add flour until your dough is stiff enough that it can be rolled in your hands without sticking. Roll into one inch balls. Place on baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.
I hope everyone has a safe holiday season! I'm going to try and blog all of the different things I bake this year and would love to hear and see pictures of what you are baking!
I really want to try these - I love the idea of making Civil War era Christmas treats! Do you really beat the egg and sugar for 15 minutes? My lazy arm is thinking about doing it with an electric hand mixer (okay, that's a physiologically impossible sentence...) and I feel like a total wimp thinking of the 19th-century women who did it with a fork or wire whisk for a quarter of an hour. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteYou should! I did it for 15 minutes but I'm sure you could do it with a mixer. I found that it did help raise them a little bit.
DeleteThese sound like a gem of a treat, thank you for bringing them back to light for us! The 15 minutes gave me a little bit of pause as well but then again it sounds like a good workout! :)
ReplyDelete