Feeling the love with some pomegranate-glazed sugar cookies, freckled with Lady Grey tea and orange zest. # 384: Marbled Cookies

Did you ever do that soap bubble / food dye craft as a kid? I don’t remember exactly what was in the mix, but dish soap and different color dyes were involved and you blew into it with a straw to make bubbles before pressing in a piece of watercolor paper to get a cool abstract design.

These cookies felt like the baking equivalent of that! Perfect for this gloomy gray weekend.

These chaotic cuties are a mash-up of a few items on my baking bucket list: a marbled icing idea from Martha Collison and a pomegranate glaze recipe from Bon Appetit magazine.

All on top of a reliable cookie workhorse from SweetAmbs – soft yet sturdy sugar cookies that can take almost any spice or flavor you throw at them.

I went with ground Earl Grey tea with additional orange zest, turning them into Lady Grey tea cookies! Basically they taste like orange cookies with a certain je ne sais quoi.

I had what felt like an orange a day in January so I currently have an abundance of frozen orange zest. I’ve been sprinkling it like fairy dust on granola, pancakes and really anything that’ll stay still long enough.

There’s a cutting out hearts joke to be made here . . . Why yes I did trip into a rabbit hole about whether Cupid breaks hearts as well as helps people fall in love, but couldn’t come up with something that didn’t make him sound like a serial killer. I just didn’t have the heart for it.

Some came out a little more toasty than the others but don’t worry – the icing will swoop into the distract everyone.

Bring it on.

Using vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract gave it a salami vibe. The air bubbles are not helping.

The sweetest dunk tank.

First of three attempts: feathered hearts in a wreath.

Only a lil drippy.

Second attempt: marbled icing in a single layer on a plate, a la a painter’s palette. Spoiler – the icing was too shallow and didn’t evenly coat the top of the cookie.

Third times the charm! Swirling the colors into the deep bowl of icing = success.

Make sure to check for air bubbles about 10 minutes into their setting time so you can pop them and have the icing set smoothly! They sometimes take their time to work to the surface and then you end up with unplanned freckles.

Happy munching!