Baking with Burns: How to make chocolate orange cookies

We can't get enough chocolate treats at this time of year! Lisa has another one for you to make in the run-up to Christmas...

As you can probably guess by now - I love chocolate and at this time of year it is everywhere!

One of my favourites is the chocolate orange. I have even found a shop which sells them for 75p! A bargain!

So of course I had to buy some and rather than eat them all myself, I broke one up and added it to some chocolate cookies.

Chocolate itself most commonly comes in dark, milk, and white varieties, with cocoa solids contributing to the brown colour.

Much of the chocolate consumed today is a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. 

Milk chocolate contains milk powder or condensed milk and white chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, but no cocoa solids.

Chocolate orange cookies can be made with either milk or dark chocolate oranges, depending on your taste.

They are tantalisingly moreish when eaten warm while the orange chocolate is still gooey, but they are equally tasty when eaten cold. They taste great with a hot chocolate and cream!

Here's the all-important recipe... 

Ingredients 

250g/9oz unsalted butter, softened

50g/2oz caster sugar

100g/3oz dark muscovado sugar

50g/2oz unsweetened cocoa powder

300g/10oz self-raising flour

Two tbsp milk

One chocolate orange, broken into pieces

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

2. Line two baking sheets with baking paper.

3. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

4. Stir in the cocoa powder, flour and milk.

5. Stir in the chocolate orange pieces.

6. Divide the mixture into 18 equal parts, roughly shape into balls and put them on the prepared baking trays, well spaced apart to allow for spreading during baking. You may have to bake the cookies in batches.

7. Lightly flatten each ball of mixture.

8. Bake for around 15 minutes until the edges are just beginning to colour and the centre still feels soft.

9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for five minutes on the tray before transferring them to a wire rack.

10. Eat while still warm or else store in an airtight container.