It may be a tad bit early, but I’m feeling all festive and ready for Christmas! From delicious recipes perfect for Xmas parties or gatherings, desserts great for your Christmas day pud or quick and simple gift idea, I hope to have your Christmas solved in one delicious bite! Todays recipe is for these insanely delicious chocolate chip shortbread biscuits dipped in chocolate orange. These biscuits should be on Christmas baking list this year, they’re unbelievably simple to make are very hard to resist eating the whole batch in one go and will they definitely satisfy your sweet tooth!
For me, it’s the epitome of Christmas in a (few) tasty mouthfuls. Lusciously smooth and deliciously aromatic chocolate with hints of fresh orange flavour. This time last year I shared the recipe for Terry’s Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, which ever since posting have become one of my most viewed recipes to date. So seeing how popular that recipe was I knew I needed to share another this year.
But when I was thinking of recipes I thought of a very traditional biscuit we enjoy at this time of year. It’s a family tradition in our house to eat shortbread at Christmas and I love any type of shortbread. Plus let’s not forget to mention that shortbread is also a great choice if you’re like me and are always late-night baking over Christmas or love to give your friends an edible gift! The recipe is very straightforward recipe filled with chocolate chips and with orange zest, then simply dipped into melted chocolate orange.
(Makes 18-20 Shortbread Biscuits)
Ingredients:
200g of unsalted butter
100g of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or 1/4 tsp of vanilla bean paste
300g of plain flour, sifted
Zest from 1 medium orange
100g of dark or milk chocolate chips
200g chocolate orange or milk/dark chocolate, melted and cool very slightly
Method:
1. Make the shortbread: Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla and orange zest in a large bowl until fluffy and pale in colour. Then add fold in the flour and mix until completely incorporated. Finish by folding in the chocolate chips. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.
2. Once chilled, take out and lightly flour a work surface. Roll the dough out about 5mm thickness. Then using your favourite cookie cutter (I went medium fluted biscuit cutter, but Christmas tree’s or snowmen cutters look super cute!) cut out rounds/shapes from the dough and place on a lined large baking tray.
3. Bake at 160 degrees C Fan for 15-20 minutes or until just starting to colour slightly at the sides. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transport onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
4. Dipping into chocolate: Dip each half into the melted chocolate enough to fully cover it. Or alternatively drizzled each biscuit with the chocolate. Leave to set, then serve and enjoy! These shortbread will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Enjoy!
