Pinterest fails – how many have you had? (more than a few in my case). I’ve seen some people have a whole board dedicated to their Pinterest fails. Pretty brilliant if you ask me.
So last week when the urge to make chocolate chip cookies struck, I turned to my Pinterest “Kitchen Goodness” board with some trepidation. Mama needed cookies and was in no mood to fail.
I found what looked to be a yummy recipe for Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies and even my kids, who tend to be cookie purists, said they sounded delicious, and we actually had all the ingredients on hand (how often does that happen? every fourth of never?) so that’s what I tried.
And they were terrific!
But the problem with making a batch of cookies from scratch is that it’s kind of a lot of work for something that gets devoured so quickly. With three teenagers and a hungry husband who never gains weight (damn him!), a night’s worth of baking can be gone by daybreak. Mama don’t got time for all that.
So Mama decided to come up with a recipe for a bigger batch and made some changes along the way, resulting in a softer, puffier cookie with more flavor depth from using two types of chocolate. I think you’ll enjoy them.
These cookies use melted butter (rather than just softened) so the dough needs to be chilled before you bake them. While this is a little bit of a pain, it’s also what makes this recipe so convenient – you scoop all the dough onto cookie sheets, freeze the dough balls for at least an hour (preferably overnight), bake what you want and store the rest.
Now you’ve got premade cookie dough balls ready to pop in the oven whenever the urge hits. And if your family is anything like mine, your batch will last three nights instead of one.
Small victories people, small victories.
Big Batch Soft Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies
(adapted from http://www.chef-in-training.com/2013/06/chocolate-chip-orange-cookies/)
This recipe makes about 75 cookies. You can easily cut the recipe in half to make a smaller batch. But why?
Ingredients:
4 sticks of butter, melted
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 cups light brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 ½ Tablespoons vanilla
the zest of one large orange (about 2 Tablespoons)
the juice of one large orange (about ½ cup)
7 cups of all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons of corn starch
½ teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of baking soda
1 bag dark chocolate chunks (approximately 2 cups)
1 bag milk chocolate chips (approximately 2 cups)
In a microwave safe container, melt butter in the microwave. Watch it carefully, you want it to be about 75% melted when you take it out. Stir the butter to finish the melting. (If you melt it all the way in the microwave it can get too hot and it will take much longer to chill, which means you’ll have to wait longer to bake your cookies. Clearly no good.)
Pour the melted butter into the bowl of your mixer. Add white sugar and brown sugar and blend together on low until combined.
In another large bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, salt and baking soda. Measure the corn starch by scooping it with your Tablespoon and leveling it off with a knife.
Using a whisk, mix dry ingredients thoroughly.
With your mixer on low, add the eggs one at a time, then mix in orange juice (I toss the pulp in too that’s left from the juicing), the orange zest, and the vanilla.
With the mixer turned off, add about ¼ of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and slowly turn the mixer on and off, allowing the dry ingredients to gradually incorporate without splattering out all over the place (ask me how I know).
Repeat adding the flour mixture in small batches, mixing slowly until it’s all incorporated. The mixer will be full!
Add in the chocolate chunks and the chocolate chips, mixing until evenly distributed.
Using a cookie scoop and parchment (or wax paper) lined cookie sheets, scoop the dough, filling up the cookie sheets. You can place the scoops of dough close together since you’re not going to bake them on these trays.
Place the cookie sheets in the freezer for at least one hour, until dough balls are frozen (freezing them overnight is preferable to let the flavors really develop.) If you’re not baking them immediately, you can put the dough balls into a large resealable plastic bag and store them until you’re ready to bake.
To bake the cookies:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Using a parchment covered cookie sheet, place the frozen dough balls about 3” apart and bake for 15 minutes. You may want to check the cookies at 14 minutes in case your oven runs a little hot. When they’re done they should be just barely set in the middle and just starting to turn slightly brown around the edges.
Remove from the oven and let set on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, before moving to a cooling rack.
Yield: about 75 cookies from one full batch of dough (cut recipe half for a smaller batch)
