Frozen cookies.. an idea...

When i was a kid and  watched these American tv shows with the great families that all lived together in harmony and mothers or grandmothers baking cookies for the children to have together with a cup of milk when ever they got back from school, i was wondering how on earth they made it. I mean, how did they have the time to bake and make cookies from scratch almost daily.. I remember thinking that one day it would happen here as well… The smell of cookies fresh from the over warming your hands and mouth after returning home from a rainy and bleak day at school… 

A few months ago though from something i read i finally realized that those mothers and grandmothers do not bother to make dough and bake cookies every day! NO, far from it… what they would do would be to get the frozen dough from the freezer that is formed into a roll and cut a few slices that they would then bake in the over right from the freezer! 

What a great idea i thought! easy to do, home made cookies that you make once, then freeze and then use fresh… 

Since then i tried a few recipes that turned out just great but a bit too much for the greek palate. All this butter and chocolate chips and candy bars etc… The butter obviously helps the cookies being cut more easily right out of the freezer but still wanted to see if i could have the same result with a typical greek cookie. 

And what more typical cookie here than the "ladokoulouro".. A cookie with no butter, no eggs, so it is great for the fasting periods but also very tasty with cinnamon and orange zest and in the background the warming taste of olive oil.. Love making it but always found that after a week it has lost it's freshness… So, i wonder how it would be if i froze the dough and bake the cookies in batches. Would it be ok in the freezer for a week or two? Did some experiments and found out that it pretty much can. Ofcourse since it has no butter so it freezes more solidly that the butter cookies it is not so easy to slice with a knife but a few hours out of the freezer will take care of that and cookies will come out smelling like heaven… 

One thing to keep in mind with this recipe is that the most important here is the olive oil. And i am talking about taste here. You need a fruity and nice oil with character, not a blunt one. 

Ingredients:

2 cups of olive oil 

1 cup of fresh orange juice and the zest of two of the oranges ποτηρια ζαχαρη

1 espresso cup of cognac 

2 cups of sugar

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinammon 

sesame seeds for garnish

General purpose flour (about 1,2 kilos) 

In the mixer bowl add the oil and sugar and beat till it is nice and frothy. 

Add the soda and baking powder in the orange juice, stir and add the mixture that will bubble and expand in the mixer bowl. Add the orange zest, cinnamon and cognac. Slowly stir in the flour and make a soft dough that can be made into cookies. 

Separate the dough in three pieces. Put the two into bags and keep in the freezer. The one that remains make it into cookies, cover with sesame and bake in 180 celcious for about 20-25 minutes till the cookies are nice and brown…