Seriously, just keep the dough in the fridge until you’re ready to make cookies!
Ingredients
—300g (about 10 ounces) standard flour 1 tsp baking powder A pinch of salt 150g (5 ounces) butter, softened 150g (5 ounces) caster sugar (superfine granulated sugar) Finely grated zest 1 orange 1 medium (size 6) free-range egg, lightly beaten ½ cup currants Caster sugar (superfine granulated sugar) for sprinkling
Method
—1 Sift flour, baking powder and salt together onto a piece of paper.
2 Beat butter with an electric beater until soft and loose, then beat in sugar and continue beating until light and white (creamed). Add orange zest, then gradually beat in egg. Add currants, them mix in dry ingredients in three lots, using your hands to work the mixture into a dough.
3 Turn dough onto a clean lightly floured bench (counter top) and roll into a sausage about 40cm (16”) long. Cut the roll in half, then wrap each piece in plastic food wrap and chill for 2 hours, or longer.
4 Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Line two baking sheets (trays) with baking (parchment) paper. Cut dough into rounds – each log should yield about 20 cookies – and place on lined sheets.
The dough can be mixed and shaped into logs and kept for a week or more in the refrigerator, or for longer in the freezer (I’ve kept a rolled log of dough in the freezer for a month, then in the fridge for 3 weeks and it showed no sign of deteriorating), then when you feel like a batch of freshly baked cookies, just slice off what you need and bake them fresh. If you think you might only want a few cookies to bake at a time, slice the dough into cookies before freezing it, otherwise freeze in a log shape.
Sprinkle cookies lightly with sugar and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Cool on a wire rack then store airtight.
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