My mother LOVES the flavor combination of orange married with chocolate and with Mother’s Day on Sunday I wanted to bake something extra special for her, these Chocolate Orange Cookies. I’ve toyed with so many renditions of this combination, but I needed something that would ship easily halfway across the country. The decision was a new twist on my Chocolate Raspberry Cookie recipe that appeared in my last book “For The Love Of Cookies“.
For this recipe you start with a basic chocolate cookie dough. The key here is great quality cocoa powder – it really does make all the difference. Where the magic comes into place is when you put it all together before baking. Using a #50 Scoop, measure out each cookie ball and gently roll the dough in the palms of your hands and place out on a baking sheet. Make a small well in each cookie and fill with a teaspoon of sweet orange marmalade.
Bake the cookies at 375 degrees F for approximately 10 minutes (I always rotate from the bottom rack to the top rack in 5 minute increments. The recipe below makes 30 cookies.
Take the cookies out of the oven when done and set aside, they will seem soft and undercooked to the touch but they set up nicely as they cool and that softness is what lends to a nice chewy cookie in the end. For an added optional touch, melt some milk chocolate chips in the microwave (30 seconds, stir, repeat until melted and smooth), drizzle over the cookies and place in the fridge to set. The chocolate drizzle helps keep the cookies separated as the marmalade will be set, but still a bit sticky. Great for piling them up in the cookie jar.
Try this out and let us know your thoughts, we can tell you this – those 30 cookies did not last a day in our test kitchen. Enjoy!
Chocolate Orange Cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 Extra Large Eggs
1/2 tsp. Vanilla
2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
2 tsp Cream of Tarter
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Sweet Orange Marmalade
1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips (Optional)
Directions:
In the bowl of a mixer, drop in butter and sugars and cream on medium speed. Next add the eggs one at a time and vanilla, cream for 3-4 minutes to ensure mixture is light and fluffy. In a separate bowl sift together flour, cocoa powder, cream of tarter, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add the sifted flour mixture to the wet mixture in the bowl until just combined. Cover the dough and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Once the dough is cooled, remove from the refrigerator and scoop out and hand roll dough balls using a #50 size scoop. Place on parchment lined baking sheets about 2-3 inches apart. Press a small well in each dough ball and fill with approximately 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of orange marmalade. Bake for 5 minutes on the lower rack, then rotate to the top rack for an additional 5 minutes for a total baking time of 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely. You can either serve like this or you can add a chocolate drizzle by melting milk-chocolate chips in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in-between until the chips are fully melted. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies and place in the refrigerator to set.
