Easy Orange Raspberry Cookie Cups – Buttery orange flavored sugar cookie cups filled with raspberry jam and sprinkled with fresh orange zest. Festive on the cookie tray and easy on the budget.
If you like thumbprint cookies, you are really going to love this recipe for easy Orange Raspberry Cookie Cups. It’s orange zested sugar cookie dough baked into a cup, then filled with raspberry jam and sprinkled with fresh orange zest. Honestly, these were so popular that after the photos were taken, they never made it back into the fridge. Our taste testers went bananas for these cookies….they made off with the tray and brought it back empty.
How To Make Easy Orange Raspberry Cookie Cups
This recipe is based off the sugar cookie cup recipe from our Peppermint Chocolate Sugar Cookie Cups. Our testers loved those cookies so much that we brought it back, added zesty orange flavor to the dough and filled those cups with bright raspberry jam.
This recipe has 3 simple steps:
- Make the dough and roll into balls.
- Bake and form the easy cups during baking.
- Fill with jam and sprinkle with more orange zest. Eat!
More good stuff:
The beauty of this sugar cookie dough is that you don’t have to chill it, or roll it out! Roll the dough into balls and set them in a mini-muffin tin.
Bake the dough for 8 – 10 minutes, until the dough has spread out and the tops are just starting to puff up.
Make cookie cups by pressing down the center of the partially baked dough with the round bottom of a spoon. The round bottom of a tablespoon measure, like this copper measuring spoon set, works especially well. Return the pan to the oven and bake for another 2 – 3 minutes until the edges of the cups start to look golden.
Fill each cup with a heaping teaspoon of raspberry jam. Put back in the oven for 1 – 2 minutes to set the jam. Sprinkle the jam with orange zest.
Tips For Making the Best Holiday Cookies
The best tip for making any baking recipe is to measure your ingredients as accurately as possible, and making sure your ingredients are at the right temperature for blending. Baking is really just the science of how measured, blended ingredients respond to heat, so accuracy matters…a lot!
- Use a spoon, not the measuring cup, to over-fill powdered or ground ingredients into your measuring cup, then use a knife to scrape the excess off the top. Spoon filling helps to keep dry ingredients from compacting in the measuring cup. This method works well for powdered sugar, baking powder, soda and ground spices, too.
- Make sure to use softened butter and room temperature eggs. If you forget to take them out, here are shortcuts for warming butter and eggs to save you some time.
- Warm the butter, in it’s wrapper, in the microwave. Microwave on High for 5 second intervals, turning the butter over each time. No microwave? First, cut the cold butter into cubes. That’ll give it more surface area to warm. Get out a large mug and a paper towel. Pile up the butter so it will fit under the mug, or do this method in batches. Run water until it is very hot. Fill the mug with the hot water and wait for the outside of the mug to feel warm. Then quickly dump out the water, wipe it dry with the paper towel and sit it upside down over the butter. The heat will transfer from the mug to the butter and gently soften it.
- To warm eggs to room temperature, fill a bowl with warm (not hot) tap water and place the eggs in the bowl. Let the eggs sit in the bowl for 4 – 5 minutes until the egg shell is no longer cool to the touch.
What’s MLH’s Cookie Extravaganza?
Must Love Home’s Cookie Extravaganza is a tradition started in 2019. Every December we are counting down the days till Christmas with the most deliciously easy cookie recipes for the holidays. We’ll be sharing simple, fun recipes that are perfect for beginners as well the experienced baker, using easy pantry ingredients.
Click to see MLH’s Cookie Extravaganza thru the years! ?
More Easy Christmas Cookie Recipes
- Cranberry Citrus Shortbread Cookies
- Peppermint Chocolate Sugar Cookie Cups
- Raspberry Pecan Swirl Cookies
- Easy Holiday Madeleines
- White Chocolate Gingerbread Crisps
- Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies
- Chewy Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies
Easy Orange Raspberry Cookie Cups
Ingredients
Sugar Cookie:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1-1/4 cup unsalted butter softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
- 1 tsp orange zest plus extra for garnish
Instructions
Bake the Cookie Cups:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Set aside mini-muffin pan for baking.
- In medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt.
- In large bowl, beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, then vanilla and orange zest. Gradually stir in flour mixture until just combined.
- Roll dough into 1-inch balls and press into ungreased mini-muffin wells. Bake 8 – 10 minutes until center of dough is puffed up. Remove from oven and press down center of each dough with round spoon. Return to oven and bake 2 minutes more. Spoon raspberry jam evenly into cookie cups. Return to oven for 1 minute. Remove and sprinkle with orange zest.
Equipment Used
Nutrition Facts
© Copyright Christine Mello for Must Love Home. We would love for you to share a link to this recipe but please do not copy/paste the recipe instructions to websites or social media. We are happy for you to share a photo with a link back to this website instead.
