Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Chocolate orange shortbread cookies



"Feast of Saint Valentine"

It’s time for some cookies, once again I am using my favorite flavor combination of chocolate and orange. My sister is probably going to be very annoyed when she sees this recipe because she is the shortbread cookie queen. But hopefully she will go make these and enjoy them and get over her annoyance real fast. Crunch, buttery, sweet cookies with an orange flavor dipped in chocolate.

Shortbread cookies for me are way too buttery and I could never stand the taste of even the best shortbread cookies. I have this thing with milk and butter, I can’t drink milk, the taste makes me gag. I can have cereal, I can use it in my scrambled eggs, but a glass of milk with cookies never! Similarly, I would never butter toast, again, I would gag. I use butter to make things as long as the butter flavor does not linger. Shortbread cookies are literally butter cookies and any cookie that’s a butter cookie has the lingering butter flavor; aka I can’t stand them. Doesn’t mean I won’t make them for the blog, it just means I’m giving away the entire bag of cookies after I make them.

This recipe comes with quite a story. And it’s a story of why it never pays to be lazy. I was out of butter on the day I wanted to originally attempt these. Instead of going to the grocery store like I had planned I decided to use coconut oil. I made the driest, trashy crumbly flavorful cookies ever. My cousin loved the flavor, she just found the texture to be off, but was willing to work with it. I on the other hand, thought they were awful. She took the bag. I wasted half a vanilla bean, my orange extract, cacao, flour, precious coconut oil and cranberries. I was so annoyed that I didn’t just go to the store and get the butter.

So here we are with the recipe using butter the way shortbread cookies were intended to be. As for coconut oil, i'll use as a substitute for butter in cakes, but never again in a cookie. As expected these cookies were very buttery. The orange flavor and chocolate flavor almost covered up the rich buttery taste. So I guess it’s the best of both worlds.



Ingredients (Printable recipe)

2 sticks cold salted butter
½ cup white sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon Orange zest
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon unsweetened Coco powder or cacao
2 ¼ cup flour
Sugary zest
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoon sugar
Optional chocolate dip
3 oz melted milk chocolate chips


Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 300 degrees
  • Cut the butter into small cubes
  • In a bowl mix together, the flour and coco powder
  • In another bowl add the butter, sugar, orange zest, salt and vanilla
  • Using a wooden spoon or a mixer mix together until incorporated
  • Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and using your hands press together until it starts to combine and starts to stick
  • Pour unto a clean work surface and knead together forming it into a rectangular shape
  • Using a rolling pin roll into about a ¼ inch thickness making sure the keep the edges neat
  • Cut into equal sized cookies, place each cookie carefully on a lined baking sheet
  • Combine the orange zest and sugar, sprinkle the top of each cookie with a little sugary zest
  • Using a fork poke a few rows of holes about 4 to 5 evenly spaced rows
  • Place in the oven and bake for 50 to 60 minutes
  • Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to completely cool
  • Melt the chocolate 
  • Dip the cookies in the melted chocolate and put on a wire rack to drain and cool



Xoxo Greedygirl

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