A holiday favorite candy gets baked into soft and delicious cookies, with a special ingredient (orange olive oil) to make them extra Christmas-y! Chocolate orange chocolate chip cookies will be a new tradition.
Honestly, with the way the last month has gone, I wasn’t sure we’d get any Christmas posts up this year! My family was hit with a few sicknesses (we’re battling a new round again right now!) and we also got to go out of the country for a whole week! It’s been crazy. With all the craziness that already is the holiday season, I had sort of written off all of my fun blog ideas this year. And I seriously had some good ones :( But I just had to make time for this one because not only is it super delicious and festive, it’s also part of a contest in which YOU could win $1000 in amazing prizes!
Did that catch your attention?! It should of, cus this is seriously fun! We’ve teamed up with a bunch of awesome bloggers, and Pinhole Press, to bring you a Holiday Cookie Bake Off! You can read all about it on the Pinhole Press blog and there’s even a fun short video.
The short story is, you can follow our Pinterest board of amazing cookie recipes, try any of them out and upload a picture of your cookies under the “tried it” section of the pin. Every photo gets an entry into the contest and the chance to win the amazing grand prize!
Now, I cannot wait to try out some of the fabulous recipes on the board which includes favorites like spritz cookies (a staple in our holiday baking) and soft sugar cookies, to cookie butter and caramel sandwich cookies (yum!) and lots of candy cane goodies! For our recipe, I decided to go to one of my favorite Christmas candies for inspiration! Don’t you just love those fun and delicious chocolate oranges?! It was one of the candies we got every single year in our stockings and I absolutely have to enjoy at least one a year still!
You obviously cannot go wrong with chocolate chip cookies either and this year I’ve discovered a delicious little trick when making them! Have you seen those flavored olive oils at farmer’s markets or olive oil stores and wondered what you would even do with orange olive oil? Well you can actually replace some of the butter or vegetable oil in any baked good recipe and have a scrumptious spin on your usual desserts! It’s especially yummy when chocolate is involved!
Personally, my favorite things we’ve tried so far have been brownies and chocolate chip cookies! The flavor is unique and divine and the olive oil seems to lend a richer, gooey-ness to the baked goods. I knew this would be the perfect compliment to the bits of chocolate oranges I wanted sprinkled into my chocolate chip cookies.
And let me tell you, these cookies are so so yummy!! I had a hard time saving all the chocolate orange slices from my two year old haha. But once he got his hands on the cookies, and the dough, I’m sure he thought it was worth saving for. I used a mix of a milk chocolate orange and a dark chocolate one. To me, the difference is barely even noticeable and they’re both delicious. You could use all chocolate oranges for this recipe, but I threw in a cup of regular chocolate chips as well since the cookies already have such an orange flavor with the olive oil!
If you don’t have the orange olive oil, don’t worry! Just use regular butter or shortening and about 1/4 c less flour. You’ll still have chocolatey orangey goodness on your hands! You can also just use your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe if you’re partial to one. Just replace half or all of the chips with chocolate orange bits and I find I usually need to add about 1/4 c more flour with the olive oil. My recipe is just a slightly modified version of the Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. (And if you’re not at high altitude like me here in Utah, add less flour to begin with and you may need to bump up the cooking time a minute or two).
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 C all purpose flour //
- 1 tsp baking soda //
- 1 tsp salt //
- 3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) softened butter //
- 1/4 C orange infused olive oil //
- 3/4 C sugar //
- 3/4 C packed light brown sugar //
- 1 tsp vanilla //
- 2 large eggs //
- 1 C chopped chocolate orange bits from 1 chocolate orange//
- 1 C chocolate chips //
- 1 more chocolate orange (you need 2 chocolate oranges total, or 3 if you’re replacing all of the chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Break the slices from one chocolate orange in half. Just breaking works better than cutting.
- Put the slices from the other chocolate orange in a ziplock baggie and break into bits with a cup or meat hammer.
- Combine flour, salt, and baking soda.
- In a separate bowl beat butter, olive oil, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until creamy.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating between each.
- Gradually beat in flour mixture until a dough is formed.
- Add chocolate orange bits and chocolate chips.
- Drop rounded tablespoonfuls (I use a 2 tablespoon size cookie scoop) onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes.
- Immediate add half orange slices to top of warm cookies.
- Let cool 2 minutes then remove to cooling rack.
Remember to head to the Holiday Bake Off Pinterest board to try out the other great recipes and if you make these, snap a pic to upload on our pin there to be entered to win! And if we don’t post again before Christmas (cus let’s face it, the odds are pretty good that we won’t haha), Happy Holidays!! xoxo
