Chocolate Dipped Orange Spritz Cookies

Today I’m posting a jazzed up recipe for my most favorite holiday cookie ever. The SPRITZ cookie. This is a family classic that I have enjoyed since I was a little girl. I vividly remember sitting at the counter watching my mom jam chilled spritz dough into her awesome 1970s electronic Super Shooter (seriously?!). And oh the frustration when the dough had chilled a bit too long and the poor Super Shooter became jammed. I can still hear the sound of that thing working so hard to pump out a little patterned tree. The Super Shooter has held up pretty well over the years. My mom still uses it to this day and the cookies continue to be out-of-this-world amazing.

The absolute star ingredient of my family’s spritz cookie recipe is almond extract. Make sure you have this in your cupboard. One year my mom didn’t have any on hand so she used vanilla extract instead. And oh man, the cookies just weren’t the same.

Now that we’ve established the seriousness of almond extract, let’s talk about texture. Spritz cookies are plump, soft, buttery, and they have a slightly dense, cake-like texture inside (<–best part, besides the almond extract). Omg. Heaven.

For this recipe, I eliminated all super shooting activities. I will let my mom handle that part because nobody does the classic spritz cookie like her. Instead, I focused on jazzing up the cookie with fun flavors. I decided to go the chocolate-orange route by adding orange zest, orange juice, and candied orange peel sprinkles. And to send them over the top, the cookies took a dip in velvety, melted dark chocolate.

Check out those orange rind sprinkles. They were so fun to make!

Over the weekend, I set out a plate of my holiday cookies during my daughter’s 2^nd birthday and everyone seemed to agree that these cookies took the prize! And that was great to hear because remember in my previous post, I mentioned a cookie swap was in progress? Well, these Chocolate Dipped Orange Spritz Cookies were my contribution to the 2014 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.

I sent batches to 3 different food bloggers:

• Elana at Stir and Strain
• Stacy at Baking Bandit
• Alyssa and Carla at Alyssa & Carla

And in turn, I received delicious cookies of my own from 3 other food bloggers:

• Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies from Married and Hungry
• Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies from food on fifth
• Bourbon Pecan Pie Cookies from Tanaya’s Table

Be sure to check out their blogs and cookie recipes! All cookie posts are going up today so you’ll have plenty of recipes to work with if holiday baking is still on your to-do list.

With all the holiday goodie recipes popping up everywhere lately, it’s safe to say I’m officially in the holiday spirit. Stay tuned for a little chat about fave holiday songs and a seriously festive and indulgent recipe perfect for Christmas morning!

Chocolate Dipped Orange Spritz Cookies

 

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Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

45 mins

 

Author: Krista

Serves: about 42 cookies

Ingredients

Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• ⅔ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• Zest of 2 oranges
• 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
• ¾ teaspoon almond extract
• 1¾ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 10 ounces dark chocolate (I used Nestle dark chocolate chips)

Candied Orange Peel

• Peel of one orange
• ⅓ cup sugar + 1 tablespoon
• water

Instructions

1. Bring butter to room temperature.
2. Cream butter for about 5 minutes, gradually adding sugar until mixture is fluffy and light.
3. Beat in egg, orange zest, orange juice, and almond extract. Mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add in flour and salt gradually until the dough comes together.
5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
6. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.
7. While dough is chilling, peel the orange with a citrus peel or vegetable peeler. I used a vegetable peeler and then chopped the pieces into small, thin strips.
8. In a small saucepan, add the strips and 1½ cups of water. Bring to a boil.
9. Then, immediately drain the orange peel.
10. Repeat this process (boiling and draining) 2 more times.
11. Bring the sugar and ¾ cup water to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Add the orange peel to the boiling water. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes.
12. Remove the orange peel with a slotted spoon and place on a lined baking sheet. Sprinkle the tablespoon of sugar over the peel and toss to evenly coat. Let the orange peel cool on the sheet for about 30 minutes.
13. Take the dough out of the refrigerator. Form into long tube-like rolls about 10-12 inches long. Slice about ½-inch thick coins from the roll, and then slice each coin in half. Place the cookie dough pieces on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Let the cookies cool on a baking rack.
14. While cookies are cooling, melt the dark chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave. Find detailed double boiler instructions here in Step 5.
15. Once melted, dip half of each cookie in the chocolate and lay it back on the rack.
16. Once all cookies are dipped, sprinkle with the candied orange peel.

Notes

Candied orange peel was adapted from Martha Stewart.
I melted 10 oz of dark chocolate so there was plenty of chocolate for dipping the cookies. However, there will be some chocolate left over. I calculated the nutrition stats using 7 oz of chocolate.
Serving size: 1 cookie
Nutrition Information (per serving) from Caloriecount.about.com
Calories: 120 Fat: 7.3g Carb: 14g Fiber: .7g Protein: 1g Sugar 8.4g Sodium: 69mg
Weight Watchers Points (calculated on member website)
WW: 3 Points Plus

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