Hello friends! Welcome back to my kitchen. It’s been a very long time since we’ve been here together. How are you? I’ve had an eventful few years, ya know, staying home and living through a pandemic, among other things. But, I’m BACK NOW and so excited to see you!
Let’s start, where all this started over a decade ago, with cookies. These are lovely chocolate dipped orange shortbread cookies. I created this recipe back in the day when I was writing a monthly food column for a local magazine. The column was titled “Sara’s Kitchen Adventures.” Some of you may remember it! I would go to local businesses/food establishments and interview the owners, then create a recipe with their products to share with my readers. It was a lot of fun! This recipe is from a trip to a historical Citrus park here in Southern California. They grow hundreds of different citrus trees and share the history of how Riverside became a citrus Mecca for Southern California.
It’s February now and believe it or not, we’re in the middle of Citrus Season! As I was not able to go to the Citrus Park, I took myself on an adventure to my own backyard. I have my own mini citrus grove with a lime tree, a dwarf meyer lemon tree and a dwarf orange tree. None of them are prolific producers. This year I had a whopping 12 oranges. While small in number, they are the perfect accent for these chocolate dipped orange shortbread cookies.
If you don’t have a tree or two in your backyard, any store bought citrus will do. You can even omit the zest and use store bought orange juice. Totally up to you!
Chocolate Dipped Orange Shortbread Cookies
- February 3, 2023
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Ingredients
- 2 sticks ( 8 oz ) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- Juice and Zest of 1 large orange OR 3 TBLS juice and 2 tsp packed zest
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon
- 12 oz chocolate chips
Directions
- Step 1
- Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy.
- Step 2
- Gradually beat in the powdered sugar.
- Step 3
- Add the vanilla and almond extract, orange juice and zest and blend well.
- Step 4
- Add the flour and stir until just combined. Gather the dough into a ball and split it into two even pieces. Flatten each piece into a disc and wrap individually in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough until firm, about 1 hour.
- Step 5
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper and set aside.
- Step 6
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out one of the disks of dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out the cookies using your favorite cookie cutter. Place cut cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Gather scraps from the dough, re-roll and continue to cut out cookies. Repeat with the remaining disc of dough.
- Step 7
- Bake the cookies for 20 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Depending on the size of your cookies, start checking them at 15 minutes. For larger cookies, it may take up to 25 minutes.
- Step 8
- Remove cookies from the oven and allow to cool completely.
- Step 9
- While the cookies are cooling, melt the chocolate chips in a shallow bowl. Heat on 50% power in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until smooth. (Mine took 90 seconds, stirring 3 times!) Dip each cookie in the melted chocolate to cover 1/4 to 1/2 of the cookie. Place the dipped cookies on parchment lined baking sheet or on wax paper and allow to set.
- Step 10
- If desired, use both white and dark chocolate and decorate with both as shown in the picture.
- Step 11
- Enjoy!
