CLASSIC CHOCOLATE ORANGE COOKIES

Well after our holidays this month I am now officially skint. No money for buying fresh baking ingredients this weekend so I worked with what I had. That is what lead me to create these gorgeous chocolate chip cookies which are laced with the classic flavor combination of chocolate and orange thanks to some leftover birthday chocolate I had sat in the fridge. If you are a keen baker like me you should have all the other ingredients you need in your kitchen which shows that you should never let a lack of funds stop you getting your baking fix.

As this is quite a straight forward recipe there isn't really much you can change other than the chocolate. I do love my orange chocolate but if you are not a fan you can just use plain chunks of chocolate or another flavored variety such as mint or coffee to mix up the recipe to your tastes instead. 

You should get 12 cookies out of the recipe below and unless you have a huge oven with massive baking trays then you will need two trays as you don't want to cram all the cookies onto one tray as they do spread when baked and you will end up with one giant square cookie (that might not be a bad thing now I think about it but it's not really what we are going for!).

Chocolate Orange Cookies

120g Soft Butter

75g Golden Caster Sugar

75g Light Brown Sugar

1 Large Egg

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

150g Chocolate Orange Chunks

180g Plain Flour

1/2 Tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda

1. Start by lining two large baking trays with grease proof paper and turning your oven up to 180 degrees (160 fan)
2. Tip the butter, caster sugar and light brown sugar into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy before adding in the egg and vanilla extract and beating until well combined.
3. Add in the chocolate chunks, flour and bicarbonate of soda and fold everything thought until you see no more streaks of flour and a cookie dough has formed.
4. Scoop 1 heaped tbsp of the cookie dough on the lined baking tray and repeat, spacing the dough balls about 2 inches apart. You should be able to get 6 on each of the trays. Flatten the tops of the dough balls slightly and then pop the trays into the centre of the oven to bake for 12 minutes.

Once the 12 minutes are over the cookies should be firm around the outside but still soft in the middle. Remove the cookies from the oven, enjoy the baked cookie smell that will now be filling your kitchen and allow them to cool fully so that they firm up before serving the cookies either with a big glass of milk or a huge pot of tea. The cookies should be soft and chewy and every now and then you get a nice bit of that melted chocolate orange dancing over your taste buds and really making the cookies sing. For me, there is nothing more delightful than whipping up a batch of these cookies with that classic flavor combination at the weekend. Yummers!