orange Archives - Spice Up Your Life

*Cranberry orange bites are incredibly easy to make, and not only are they a pretty appetizer or item for your holiday dessert table, but they’re delicious, too.*

For all the complicated dishes that come along with the holidays, I tend to be especially attracted to all the fun snacks, candies and sweets that people make throughout November and December.

Our family get togethers always feature a wide array of goodies on the snack table. It would be easy to skip the actual meal altogether and fill up on all the delicious bites on the side. I love digging into a homemade cheeseball or peanut clusters, filling my plate with tons of completely uncomplimentary flavor profiles. It’s the best.

We recently hosted a get together at the office, so I decided to try a recipe for some cranberry orange bites to share on our snack table. They turned out great, and they were really pretty, too, with the color of the cranberry peeking out around buttery crescent dough.

This recipe comes from the blog “Play, Party, Plan” by Britni Vigil. You can find the original post at https://www.playpartyplan.com/mini-cranberry-orange-bites/. The only thing I changed is the amount of sugar, and I decided not to glaze these, too.

Cranberry Orange Bites

Cranberry orange bites are incredibly easy to make, and not only are they a pretty appetizer or item for your holiday dessert table, but they're delicious, too.

Course Appetizer, Dessert, Snacks

Keyword cranberries, cream cheese, crescent roll dough, dried orange peel, orange, orange zest, powdered sugar

Ingredients

1 can crescent roll dough
2/3 cup cranberries fresh or thawed
zest of one large orange
1 teaspoon dried orange peel
2 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a mini muffin tin by spraying each well with cooking spray.
In a food processor, process the cranberries until they’re fully chopped up.
Add in the orange zest, orange peel, cream cheese and two tablespoons powdered sugar and process until the mixture is smooth.
Taste it and mix in more powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time, until the mixture reaches your desired sweetness. (It will be just a bit tart, but it shouldn’t make your lips pucker.)
Roll out the sheet of crescent rolls and, with a pizza cutter, cut it into 36 to 38 squares.
Using your hands, flatten out each square just a bit before placing it into the prepared muffin tin.
Scoop about one teaspoon of the cranberry mixture into each piece of dough, and then pinch the opposite corners together to make a little bundle.
Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until the crescent rolls are lightly browned.
Store the bites in an airtight container.

My filling was incredibly tart when I first tried it, which led to me adding quite a bit more sugar to get it to a place where I didn’t think people would screw up their faces when eating it.

These were a very simple treat that went over well with our guests, and it made me excited for all the holiday snack tables to come over the next couple of months.

As those big meals come, I won’t mind skipping a larger scoop of mashed potatoes or foregoing the gravy. I’d much rather spend my holiday calories in a little different way.

This piece first appeared in print Nov. 24, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

This cranberry orange tart is made with fresh fruit and is surrounded by a spicy gingersnap crust. The flavors are perfect for the holidays.

In 1973, late-night host Johnny Carson made a joke about a supposed toilet paper shortage during his opening monologue.

That joke, along with some press releases from a member of Congress, led to an actual toilet paper shortage as people cleaned stores out and the empty shelves reinforced the rumor.

Right now, it seems supply chain problems are causing some of those same issues. I can’t possibly be the only person this year who spent good money on some name-brand pureed pumpkin when the generic brand was out just in case there wasn’t some on the shelves before Thanksgiving.

And another victim of current shortages is one I wouldn’t have been able to predict: gingersnaps.

Now, I have no official data to back up my claim that there’s a shortage of gingersnaps out there, but I can tell you I ended up at four different local stores before I finally found some for this week’s recipe. They’re out there. You just have to do a little sleuthing to find them.

But I will tell you that this week’s recipe is not only a dessert tailor-made for the holidays, but it’s worth driving all around town to find the ingredients.

The recipe I tried comes from the blog “All Purpose Flour Child” by Taylor Harbin. You can find her original post at http://www.allpurposeflourchild.com/blog/cranberry-orange-curd-gingersnap-tart. I added extra cinnamon in my version.

Cranberry Orange Gingersnap Tart

This cranberry orange tart is made with fresh fruit and is surrounded by a spicy gingersnap crust. The flavors are perfect for the holidays.

Course Dessert

Keyword Christmas, cinnamon, cranberry, fresh fruit, gingersnaps, orange, tart, Thanksgiving

Ingredients

Crust Ingredients

12 ounces gingersnap cookies
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon molasses

Filling Ingredients

12 ounces whole fresh cranberries
1/4 cup freshly-squeezed orange juice
3/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
zest of 1 large orange
4 tablespoons butter

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place the gingersnaps in a food processor and process until they are in fine crumbs. Pulse in the cinnamon and salt. In a small, microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter in the microwave. Stir in the molasses until it’s smooth, and then add the mixture to the food processor. Pulse until everything is well combined.
Dump the crust mixture into a 12-inch tart pan (you can substitute a deep pie pan or a springform pan). Press the mixture with the bottom of a glass or measuring cup to spread it evenly, making sure to press it up the sides of the pan.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the crust is golden. Set it aside.
For the filling, combine the cranberries with 1/4 cup water and the orange juice in a saucepan. Cover the mixture and let it cook for about 15 minutes or until the cranberries are soft.
Position a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and drain the cranberries into it, pressing to get the puree into the bowl and leaving the berry skins in the strainer. Once you’re finished, return the puree to the saucepan.
In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture is a pale yellow.
Add a little of the hot cranberry puree into the egg mixture and stir to temper the eggs, and then dump all of it into the saucepan over medium heat.
Whisk constantly until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and orange zest. Continue stirring until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth.
Pour the filling into the prepared crust and smooth it out. Chill it in the refrigerator until it’s set (30 minutes to an hour), and serve.

This is a gorgeous dessert, and the orange and cranberry are a perfect combination with the warm spices in the crust. The filling has a bit of a tartness to it, which is an especially nice flavor profile when there are tons of sweets around.

And if you’re in a bind, you can totally substitute in some vanilla wafers or graham crackers for this crust—as long as they don’t fall victim to shortages, too.

But at least it’s just cookies we’re having trouble getting ahold of. The last thing we need right before having people over for the holidays is a toilet paper shortage.

This piece first appeared in print on Nov. 18, 2021.