These soft, thick, and chewy orange sugar cookies are easy to make (no mixer required!), infused with a refreshing, light orange flavor, and topped with a decadent orange cream cheese frosting!
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Why I Love These Orange Sugar Cookies
- Soft & thick: these are a orange spinoff from my thick lemon sugar cookies, which is one of my all-time favorite chilled cookie recipes!
- Quick to make: these orange cookies use melted butter so no need to soften it beforehand!
- Bright & citrusy: these cookies use fresh orange zest in the dough & fresh orange juice in the cream cheese frosting, which adds the perfect orange flavor without being overpowering!
Ingredient Notes
This is just an overview, jump down to the full recipe card for the recipe amounts and condensed recipe instructions to make these moist orange cookies.
- Orange Extract: adding a little bit of orange extract to the dough & frosting helps give the cookies a prominent orange flavor. You can find this in the baking aisle of most grocery stores. If you can't find it, you can make this recipe with just the fresh zest & juice but it will result in a more subtle orange flavor.
- Orange: 1 large orange will be enough for both the zest & juice in the frosting. If you want to be safe, I'd grab two from the store so that you have enough to sprinkle extra zest on top.
- Butter: I use unsalted butter in my recipes but if you use salted, just omit the added salt. Do not use margarine, as it doesn't work well for cookie doughs that use melted butter.
How to Make Orange Frosted Cookies:
This is just an overview, jump down to the full recipe card for the recipe amounts and condensed recipe instructions.
Step 1: Make Dough
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small glass bowl, microwave unsalted butter (¾ cups, i.e. 1 ½ sticks) until melted. Pour into large mixing bowl. Add in granulated sugar (½ cup) and powdered sugar (½ cup) and mix for 10 seconds.
- Add 1 egg + 1 yolk, vanilla extract (2 teaspoons), orange extract (¼ teaspoon), and orange zest (1 tablespoon), then mix until combined.
- Add baking powder (1 ½ teaspoons), baking soda (½ teaspoon) and salt (¼ teaspoon). Mix until combined.
- Half cup at a time, add all-purpose flour (2 ½ cups) and mix until flour is just incorporated. Do not overmix.
Step 2: Scoop & Bake
- Immediately after mixing, scoop dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls. Lightly flatten each ball before placing on cookie sheet. (Because this has melted butter, do not let the dough sit out before rolling into balls & baking, or your dough will become dry and crumbly.)
- Bake at 350℉ for 8-10 minutes. They may look slightly underdone, but they will finish baking on the hot cookie sheet after you take it out of the oven. Of course, because ovens bake differently, use your best judgement to keep them in a minute longer if they look severely underbaked.
Step 3: Make Frosting
- In a large bowl, beat the softened unsalted butter (¼ cup) and cream cheese (4-ounces) on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer (with paddle attachment) for 1-2 minutes (until light and creamy).
- Keeping the mixer on medium speed, slowly add in vanilla extract (1 teaspoon), orange extract (¼ teaspoon), fresh orange juice (1 tablespoon), and powdered sugar (1 ¼ cups). Once incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 2 minutes.
Step 4: Decorate
Once the cookies are fully cooled, spread or pipe frosting on cooled cookies and top with extra orange zest, if desired!
Tips & Variations
- Add food coloring! If you want to make these even more iconically orange, you can add a drop of orange food coloring to the dough and/or frosting. If you don't have orange food coloring, simply use a drop of red & yellow.
- Try them chilled! I've been obsessed with chilled sugar cookies long before the days of Crumbl. These orange cookies are so good chilled, as the dough gets perfectly dense and even more chewy.
- Level up with good vanilla! While I usually use imitation vanilla for my recipes, you can make turn these into the ultimate vanilla orange sugar cookies by using a high quality vanilla (Rodelle's Madagascar Vanilla is my fave!).
Frequently Asked Questions:
While I love the flavor the cream cheese adds, you can also use the buttercream from my soft frosted sugar cookies and substitute out the almond extract for orange extract. Or you can also make a simple sugar cookie icing (swap out the almond extract for about ¼ teaspoon orange extract, to taste) to make orange iced cookies.
If your cookies didn't spread as much as mine, press them down more when you bake them. Puffy cookies can also be the result of letting the dough sit too long before baking because it causes the melted butter in the dough to firm up too much. Puffy cookies can also be the culprit of your cookie sheet or your oven being too hot. For more consistent cookies, I highly recommend investing in a light-colored metal baking pan and an internal oven thermometer.
If your cookies spread more than mine, you may have under-measured the flour or used a brand of butter that contained more oil. I personally use Costco unsalted butter; I find that some grocery stores brands like Kroger spread a lot and result in a greasy cookie.
You can but it won't pack as much orange flavor! Using only the zest and juice will result in a more subtle flavor.
Storage & Freezing
- Storage: store in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days; these are so good chilled!
- Freezing: freeze no longer than 1-2 months for optimal freshness. If freezing these frosted, freeze on a cookie sheet in a single layer before stacking and storing.
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Frosted Orange Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
⭐️ Before you begin! If you make this, will you do me a huge favor afterwards and leave a review and rating letting me know how you liked this recipe? This helps my small business thrive so I can continue providing free recipes and high-quality content for you.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small glass bowl, microwave ¾ cup unsalted butter (i.e. 1 ½ sticks) until melted. Pour into large mixing bowl. Add in ½ cup granulated sugar and ½ cup powdered sugar and mix for 10 seconds.
- Add 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon orange extract, and 1 tablespoon orange zest, then mix until combined.
- Add 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda and ¼ teaspoon salt and mix until combined.
- Half cup at a time, add 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour and mix until flour is just incorporated. Do not overmix.
- Immediately after mixing, scoop dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls. Lightly flatten each ball before placing on cookie sheet. (Because this has melted butter, do not let the dough sit out before rolling into balls & baking, or your dough will become dry and crumbly.)
- Bake at 350℉ for 8-10 minutes. (The magic number in my oven is 9 minutes) They may look underdone, but they will finish baking on the hot cookie sheet after you take it out of the oven. ((Of course, because ovens bake differently use your best judgement to keep them in a minute longer if they look severely underbaked.)
- After removing from oven, allow the cookies to cool on the hot baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing them from cookie sheet. Allow cookies to fully cool before frosting.
- In a large bowl, beat the softened ¼ cup unsalted butter (i.e. ½ stick) and 4 ounces cream cheese on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer (with paddle attachment) for 1-2 minutes (until light and creamy).
- Keeping the mixer on medium speed, slowly add in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon orange extract, 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice, and 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar. Once incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 2 minutes.
- Spread or pipe frosting on cooled cookies and top with extra zest for topping, if desired!
Notes from Melissa
- Storage: store in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days; these are so good chilled!
- Freezing: freeze no longer than 1-2 months for optimal freshness. If freezing these frosted, freeze on a cookie sheet in a single layer before stacking and storing.
Delicious *****
Thank you so much for leaving a review, Mary!
These cookies were delicious! They're so soft, and the orange flavor is not too overbearing. I made them smaller (0.8 oz each) and ended up making 33 cookies.
So happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe! Thank you so much for leaving a review, Evelyn! I really appreciate it!
Delicious cookies! We made ours too big and it came out like one huge cookie brownie but still delicious. Needed to spoon smaller amounts!