Recipe: Dark Chocolate And Orange Shortbread

                                           

I love shortbread, love cooking shortbread and love thinking of new flavour combinations to try out in my shortbread recipes. And earlier in the year I shared a recipe for triple chocolate shortbread that created my addiction for shortbread with chocolate chips in. So with Autumn upon us and Christmas rapidly approaching, I thought I’d try and incorporate one of my favourite Autumn/Winter flavours into shortbread. So today I’m sharing with you my dark chocolate and orange shortbread thar’s rich, sharp and melt in the mouth delicious. The key to this shortbread is dark chocolate chips, their slightly bitter flavour combines perfectly with the sharpness of the orange and creates a delicious combination in each bite.

Ingredients 

- 115g Butter

- 55g Caster Sugar 

- 175g Plain Flour 

- 100g Dark Chocolate Chips

- Pinch Of Salt

- Zest Of One Orange

- Juice Of Half An Orange 

Method

1. Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a tin of your choosing with greaseproof paper.
2. Into a bowl place your caster sugar, plain flour and salt.
3. Add your butter and then using your fingers or a food processor blitz/rub together until it resembles breadcrumbs. 
4. Add your dark chocolate, orange zest and orange juice. Continue rubbing together until it starts to resembles a dough. Normally I’d add a little bit of water to my mix to help bind it all together but because we’ve added the orange juice, we don’t need that extra help to bind everything together. 
5. Once you have your dough, you can either roll it out on a lightly floured surface and cut out with a cutter of your choice or you can press it into a small tin that’s lined with greaseproof paper like I do. 
6. Once your shortbread is ready, pop it into the oven and let it bake for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. 
7. Leave to cool completely in the tin if you’ve cooked it as a whole and then cut and enjoy or if you have shaped shortbread just gently peel it from the greaseproof and enjoy. These work wonderfully with a nice cuppa and one bit won’t be enough.