This recipe began life after a discussion with Grant and Sarah about the oranges Grant used to get in his Christmas stocking (when he was a kid growing up in the UK). The chat morphed into a discussion about our favourite Christmas treats.
He said shortbread, Sarah said chocolate orange (she also said that it was too early to be talking about Christmas, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s never too early for that!) and I thought, how great would it be if you could have a shortbread with chocolate that tasted just a little bit orange. And voila, we have the Orange Chocolate Chip Shortbread.
I think this has just enough orange in it, but I suppose if you wanted a really orangey biscuit you could add some orange flavouring…I don’t think you need it. Also, if you live in the UK, you might be able to get your hands on some Terry’s Chocolate Orange Choc Chips, in which case you won’t need the orange at all!
Anyways, here’s the recipe:
What you need…
150g butter at room temperature
75g caster sugar
200g plain flour
25g cornflour
(A pinch of salt if you’ve used unsalted butter)
Zest of 1 orange
100g dark chocolate chips or finely chopped dark chocolate
What you do with it…
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C if fan-forced) and line a couple of baking trays with baking parchment.
Cream together the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy. I use the free-standing mixer for this.
Mix in the orange zest and chocolate chips.
Sift together the flours, add them and a pinch of salt to the bowl mix until it just comes together in a stiff dough.
Tip it onto a floured work surface and gently knead it until smooth – it shouldn’t need too much.
Roll it out until it’s about 1cm thick and use a cookie or scone cutter to cut into your desired shapes. Carefully place each shortbread on your tray, leaving a little space between each biscuit and prick the tops with a fork. Alternatively, if you can’t be faffed with the whole rolling, cutting, re-rolling thing, you can roll the dough into logs and slice off biscuits - just be aware you won’t get a perfect circle and when the knife hits the choc chips you’re likely to get some “interesting shapes” … as per my pic.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes. The edges should be golden. Let them cool a little in the tray before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
These sound and look really good.
My kids were horrified when I said we always had an orange and whole(shelled) nuts in our stockings as a kid in the uk
Making these soon. I love the combination of flavors.