Chocolate Orange Cookies

It's always exciting to try new recipes, and even more so to tweak recipes in your own individual way to make something extra special, but for me, the most exciting thing is to create a recipe that's completely your own. This is the first sweet recipe that I've ever invented myself, and as something from the baking realm it was quite daunting - things can go so easily wrong (and trust me, they did a couple of times) but when it works you get the greatest sense of achievement, well, in my opinion anyway.

So here's my little creation: Chocolate Orange Cookies. They're sort of cracked and glossy on the top and soft and squidgy in the middle - my ideal texture for a cookie. The orange flavour comes through quite strongly which is just my own taste, and the slightly bitter tones of the dark chocolate really set of the sweetness of the orange beautifully.

Chocolate Orange Cookies
300g dark chocolate
50g butter
2 eggs
170g soft light brown sugar
half a teaspoon of baking powder
125g plain flour
Zest of 2 oranges
Juice of half an orange

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees.
Melt the butter with 200g of the chocolate, set aside. Chop the remaining chocolate into chunks.
Beat the eggs, sugar and zest until pale and fluffy, then add the melted chocolate mixture.
Sieve in the flour and baking powder and combine.
Add the orange juice and the remaining dark chocolate chunks, then spoon on to a lined baking tray and bake for 0-5 minutes until they are beginning to crack on the top.
Leave to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes before transferring on to a cooling rack as they'll be very fragile and near impossible to transfer at first.

I gave these to a friend as part of her Christmas present and she seemed to thoroughly enjoy them and told me that the rest of her family were fans too, so I'm thrilled - I hope you try them, and try your own recipes too :-)