These fragrant and indulgent cookies are tastiest paired with candied chocolate orange dippers. Rather than setting yourself that tricky and unnecessary technical challenge of homemade ja ffa cakes, here you can have the same flavour combination packed into a gooey cookie. They will keep in an air tight container for 3 days – so from a Wednesday night’s Bake Off all the way through to the weekend…
Ingredients
• 200g softened butter
• 130g brown sugar
• 260g plain flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Zest of 1/2 orange
• 50g dark chocolate, chopped
• Handful of chopped hazelnuts
For the chocolate orange dippers
• 1 orange, sliced into segments
• 50g dark chocolate, melted
• 50g caster sugar
• 100ml water
Method
- Cream together the softened butter and brown sugar. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract, and combine well.
- Add in the flour alongside the chopped dark chocolate, orange zest and hazelnuts. Mix well until it forms a sticky dough.
- On a floured surface, roll the dough into a ball and wrap in cling film. Put the cookie dough in the freezer for 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/fan.
- Take the cookie dough out of the freezer and mould into 12 discs. Place the cookies on baking paper and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Leave to cool before serving.
- To make the candied chocolate orange dippers, as shown in my photo, create a syrup in a pan by warming the water with caster sugar. Bring to the boil on a medium heat, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved.
- Add the orange slices and simmer on a low heat for 15 minutes. Remove them from the pan, and pop them in the fridge to cool and harden.
- Dip the orange slices into melted dark chocolate. Enjoy!
