Double Chocolate Orange Shortbread
These chocolate orange shortbread cookies melt in your mouth and are made with only a few simple ingredients. They are infused with orange flavor, then drizzled with melted dark chocolate and sprinkled with more orange zest. They make a delicious holiday cookie everyone will love!
These dark chocolate orange cookies literally melt in your mouth! They have that light, airy texture of a classic shortbread cookie recipe, plus with dark chocolate and orange zest on top, they make a super pretty and unpredictable holiday shortbread recipe for cookie swaps or for giving to friends.
In pastry school, I had a chef instructor who introduced me to the classic combo of chocolate and orange. I know, I must have been living under a rock or something!! I loved it so much I’ve since built it into other recipes too, like these chocolate orange cupcakes and this chocolate orange cake.
One of the best things about these is that they come together with just a few simple ingredients. Super helpful when you’re in full holiday mode.
I used powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar because powdered sugar has corn starch in it which helps it dissolve smoothly into the butter with no graininess. Granulated sugar keeps its coarse structure even after mixing, so I knew it wouldnt give me the same result.
Because this is a cut out chocolate shortbread cookie, you can make them in any shape you like, I went with easy circles here. To make them stand out, I drizzled them with dark chocolate on a diagonal and sprinkled on extra orange zest for the contrast of color and to show their flavor.
Ingredients you need
How to make them
Garnish– Cool the cookies, then melt the dark chocolate in the microwave (30 seconds at a time until melted) and drizzle on the diagonal. Top with extra orange zest to make it look pretty.
Cookie making tips
Keep the dough cold- If you find that the cookie dough is hard to cut out or move to the baking tray, put the dough in the fridge for 5-10 more minutes to firm up. You can also put the cookies in the fridge for a few minutes before baking too.
Use any cutter- Use any size cookie cutter you like but remember that the yield of these cookies will be smaller with a larger cutter.
No spread– The cookies should be chilled properly and therefore not spread a lot.
Double Chocolate Orange Shortbread
Ingredients
- ½ cup (113.5 g) unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup (90 g) powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp (½) orange zest, plus 1/2 tbsp more for garnish
- 1 cup (120 g) all purpose flour
- ⅓ cup (28.67 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) kosher salt
- 4 ounces (113.4 g) dark chocolate, melted, for drizzling over baked cookies
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1 tbsp orange zest, and beat on low-medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute.
- Add the 1 cup flour, 1/3 cocoa powder, and 1/2 tsp salt, and mix until a dough forms about 1 minute. Shape the dough into a disk and wrap in parchment paper. Chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
- Prepare 2 sheet trays with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 325° F.
- Roll out the chilled dough into ¼’’ thickness between 2 pieces of parchment paper and using a 2-3 inch cookie cutter, cut out the cookies.
- Place the cookies on the sheet tray and bake for 11-12 minutes. If the cookies are hard to peel off, chill them for a few more minutes before transferring to the baking sheet.
- Cool the cookies. Melt the 4 oz dark chocolate in a small microwaveable bowl, about 30 seconds at a time until fully melted. Drizzle on the cookies and sprinkle with more orange zest.
Sooo good and so easy to follow! The flavor was on point and I made them into little candy cane shapes for my Christmas cookie gift boxes (which featured 5 of Sam’s other recipes!). Chocolate oranges are one of my favorite Christmastime treats and these cookies nailed it. 🙂
I loved your candy cane versions!! They looked so cute!!!!! I am so happy you loved them!!!
Hi Sam,
I made these cookies for the first time and liked them so much that I will be giving them out as Christmas presents. I made them in a heart shape and they look and taste sooo lovely!
Recipe is really easy to follow. I expected it would be a bit tricky making it for the first time, but it wasn’t. The only thing I was struggling with was the first freezing step, dough froze completely so I had to wait, but everything else went very well.
I made so many of your recipes and each one is better than other, all of the instructions are easy to follow and everything is so delicious!
Thank you!
I’m not sure what I did wrong but this recipe came out very crumbly for me.
I hoped cooling it would help. HOWEVER, when I tried rolling it out it just broke apart. Smells lovely but didn’t work for me.
Hi! Thanks for trying the recipe! Im wondering how you measured the flour? If you scooped the flour with your measuring cup, you may have ended up with too much flour. It’s always best to spoon then level or even better to measure it out. Thank you for trying anyways!