Italian wine cookie update

image from Antiqueclipart.com

I put together the dough for version 1 of my Italian wine cookie recipe, using a variation of the antique Cinnamon Biscuit recipe, and although I haven't baked the cookies yet, I can tell the recipe needs more work. Here is the composition of the dough that's hopefully going to be baked today:


4 cups flour
1 1/3 cups white sugar

2/3 cup honey

1 pound unsalted butter, softened

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

zest of 1 orange

1 tablespoon orange flower water

1/4 cup marsala wine

The dough ended up being really soft; I was aiming for a stiff dough that I could roll out and cut with cookie cutters. I started out with only 2 cups of flour with the rest of the ingredients, but I got more of a batter than a dough; the addition of 2 more cups of flour, 1/2 cup at a time, resulted in a soft dough that would work for drop cookies. I chilled the dough overnight and now it is very stiff, like a shortbread dough. I have let the bowl of dough sit on the counter all morning, hoping to soften it enough to roll out, but I'm not sure if the flavor is going to be right when baked. Too bad I made the whole recipe instead of halving or quartering it! I'm almost out of flour now, so it will be a few days before I can get some more flour and try another batch ... And I'm still looking for the right cookie cutters ... Oh well.