Chocolate orange cookies

Having had the girls over for a girly evening (complete with chocolate and raspberry brownies, lemon polenta cake, gossip and Coyote Ugly!), they left at about 11.00 on Sunday morning and I realised that I was out for a late lunch for a friend’s birthday, so I should whip up something quick and tasty as a small gift.

I didn’t have the time or energy to make anything too extravagant, so when I found orange-flavoured dark chocolate in the cupboard, I decided that I could make some quick and delicious chocolate orange cookies. These cookies are usually made with 450g of dark chocolate, so it was easy to replace with the orange-flavoured dark chocolate. I only had 300g of this, so I added 100g milk chocolate and 50g of chopped up orange matchmakers!  You could probably also make with all orange-flavoured milk chocolate (but they may be a little too sweet), or all dark chocolate, but I think the mix worked particularly well. I also replaced the vanilla extract in the original recipe with the zest of an orange.

I’ve added a rest stage for the cookie mixture into my method below. I didn’t do this when I made these cookies and, as you can see from the picture, they spread out too much and so were a bit thin (but still delicious!). I didn’t fit all of the mixture onto my baking trays, so had to do a second batch (of 3) once the first were cooked. This batch stayed much thicker and so I have added the rest stage in!  

Overall, I’m not generally a big chocolate fan, but these are absolutely delicious! Rich, chewy, chocolatey, with a nice fresh orangey zing! They’d make fantastic Christmas presents. EHH loved these and so I’ll definitely be making these again.

Chocolate orange cookies

(makes 12-14 large cookies)

Ingredients

1. 50g butter
2. 350g orange flavoured dark chocolate, roughly chopped
3. 100g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
4. 2 eggs
5. 170g soft light brown sugar
6.  Zest of one orange
7. 85g plain flour
8. ½ tsp baking powder

Recipe

1. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.
2. Put the butter, the milk chocolate and half of the orange-flavoured dark chocolate in a heat-proof bowl.
3. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir gently until the chocolate and butter are melted and combined.
4. Beat the eggs, sugar and orange zest in a bowl until frothy.
5. Pour in the chocolate mixture, beating on a slow speed until combined.
6. Sift the flour and baking powder into a separate bowl.
7. In three additions, stir the chocolate mixture into the flour.
8. Stir in the remaining chocolate.
9. Leave for 20-30 minutes to allow the mixture to firm up a bit.
10. Pre-heat the oven to 170C.
11. Dollop the cookie mixture onto the two prepared baking trays, allowing plenty of room between each, as the cookies will spread.
12. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes, until the top of the cookies start to crack, the sides of the cookies are firm but the centre still fairly squidgy.
13. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 10 minutes.
14. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.