Orange-Milk Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Pecans flavor these rich milk chocolate chunk cookies along with grated orange zest and orange-flavored liqueur.
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon packed grated orange zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon orange-flavored liqueur
- 12 ounces coarsely chopped milk chocolate bars (four 3 ounce bars such as Tobler or Lindt)
- Vegetable shortening for the baking sheets
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar, orange zest, vanilla extract and salt; beat with a spoon until fluffy.
- Beat in the egg, orange liqueur and baking soda.
- Stir in the flour, pecans and chocolate.
- Transfer to a bowl just large enough to hold the dough, cover and refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours or overnight.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat one or two baking sheets with vegetable shortening.
- Using 2 to 3 tablespoons of the dough for each cookie, shape the dough into balls and place one in the center of a cookie sheet and evenly space four others a few inches in from each corner.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies spring back when very lightly touched. Do not over-bake or the cookies will dry out.
- Cool on the sheets for 2 minutes; transfer to paper towels for abut 2 minutes, and transfer to a rack to cool.
- Repeat the baking procedure, using cool baking sheets and lightly coating them with additional shortening for each batch.
