Chocolate Orange Shortbread

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If you’re anything like me and love shortbread and Terry’s Chocolate Orange, these biscuits will be right up your street.

Buttery and melt-in-the-mouth, they’re enhanced with a delicate hint of salt and sweet orange, and generously studded with chunks of orange-flavoured milk chocolate. Quick to prepare and ready for the oven in minutes, they’re perfect served simply with a cup of tea or coffee. Be warned though – they’re dangerously addictive!

Where is this recipe from?

This recipe is an adaptation of my Buttery Lemon Shortbread. I’ve simply swapped the lemon zest for orange and added chunks of delicious chocolate orange. The base recipe isn’t overly sweet, so the chocolate provides a delightful contrast in texture, whilst adding just the right amount of balanced sweetness.

How to make this fabulous Chocolate Orange Shortbread

Collect all the ingredients together:

• caster sugar. Caster sugar is ideal for baking because its finer crystals dissolve more easily than granulated sugar. This creates a smoother texture in light desserts such as mousses, meringues, and sponge cakes. The smaller crystals also cream more effectively with butter, helping to prevent a grainy or dense result.
• zest from an unwaxed orange, washed. Thoroughly scrub the skin before removing the zest
• unsalted butter, at room temperature. I always use unsalted butter in baking. The salt and moisture levels in salted butter can vary significantly, which affects consistency. Using unsalted butter allows me to control exactly how much salt and liquid goes into a recipe, helping to create cakes and desserts with a better texture and more consistent, creamy flavour.
• fine salt. I use a finely ground sea salt.
• semolina. You can replace the semolina with cornflour, or simply add an extra 25g of plain (all-purpose) flour instead. Semolina adds a subtle nutty flavour and a slightly crunchier texture, while cornflour creates a softer, more melt-in-the-mouth shortbread — it’s entirely your choice!
• plain/all-purpose flour. I prefer using plain flour over self-raising flour. Brands vary in the type and amount of leavening agents (and sometimes salt) they include, which makes results less consistent. With plain flour, I can control exactly how much raising agent and salt to add. It’s also more reliable, as leavening agents lose strength over time, giving self-raising flour a shorter shelf life.
• orange flavoured chocolate. The weight given is the equivalent of 1 Terry’s chocolate orange. Actually they weigh 157g; the 150g in the recipe allows for the cook to have a cheeky slice of chocolate!

How to make this melt in the mouth shortbread:

1. You will need an 18cm/7in loose bottomed square cake tin. If it is non-stick, you should not need to grease it becuase there is so much butter in the shortbread dough, but if you are in any doubt, lightly butter/grease the tin.
2. Weight the sugar into a mixing bowl and then grate over the zest of an orange. Use your fingers to rub the zest into the sugar. This helps to release the natural oils from the zest and in turn this brings out the orange flavour.
3. Weigh the room temperature butter onto the sugar/orange mix, add the salt, and cream together with an electric whisk until light and fluffy.
4. Next, beat in the semolina before mixing in the flour. You can either fold in the flour or use the slowest speed on your electric whisk.
5. Finally, fold in the chopped chocolate. Be careful not to over-mix at this stage.
6. Transfer to the cake tin and press down to level the surface. The easiest way to do this is to cover the dough with some baking parchment and first, flatten the shortbread dough with your fingers and then use a palette knife or flat sided jam jar to press/roll the top of the shortbread and ensure an even surface.
7. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 – 35 minutes, or until lightly browned. Take out of the oven and leave in the tin for ten minutes.
8. After 10 minutes, push the shortbread base out of the tin, onto a flat surface. Immediately cut into 12 fingers and set aside to cool. Try not to move them until cool – they will be soft and break easily at first.
9. Serve as they are with a cup of tea or coffee.

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Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.