Chocoholic on the Road: Milwaukee, Part 2 (or, Orange-Scented Chocolate Chunk Cookies)

Since the folks I was visiting in Milwaukee were so great about hosting and feeding me, I decided to leave them with a little baked treat. Chocolate, of course. Everybody loves chocolate chip cookies, but I wanted to add a little something extra to them. I settled on orange-scented chocolate chunk cookies.

I started with my standard “mix-in” cookie recipe – meaning that this is the dough I make and then mix just about anything into.

Standard mix-in cookie recipe

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup dark brown sugar

¾ cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp salt

2 ¼ cups flour

I cream together the butter, sugars, and egg, and then add the vanilla and salt before slowly stirring in the flour. Once the mix-ins are added, roll the dough into 1-to-1 ½ inch balls, and bake at 375° F for 9-11 minutes, or until slightly golden but still soft.

The mix-ins for the orange-scented chocolate chunk cookies included 18 oz of chopped semisweet chocolate (Scharffen Berger 62%), zest from two naval oranges, and juice from the same two naval oranges.

I also added ¼ cup of flour to account for the extra moisture from the orange juice. It was time to roll the dough into balls.

They went into the oven for 9 ½ minutes, and came out smelling absolutely delicious.

I have to say that the orange came through in the aroma more than the taste. But who would turn down chocolate chunk cookies made with great chocolate regardless of the intensity of the orange? Certainly not me, and certainly not the family that I shared them with.