Sally’s Baking Addiction got a facelift yesterday. A few changes to the overall look including easier navigation—especially for mobile—slightly darker colors (for easier reading!), fonts, new recipe format, and the sidebar. I’ll take a moment to fully explain all of the changes (and recap our NYC bakery tour!) later this week. Please let me know if you notice anything wonky. Site updates are never easy! But right now we have to discuss cookies. Business as usual. More specifically, slice and bake shortbread-like cookies with a drench of dark chocolate and scented with fresh orange. A sprinkle of sea salt to bring it all together, not to mention butter + brown sugar + cinnamon + vanilla inside the cookie itself. This is where you want to be and that salted dark chocolate edge is allllll you want to taste. Do yourself a favor and actually cover the entire thing in dark chocolate. I promise you won’t hate it. ♥ These cookies are a nod to my classic stand-by: the toasted hazelnut slice ‘n’ bakes that changed my opinion on slice and bake cookies altogether. Prior to those gems, I thought slice and bake cookies were dry and boring. Because honestly? They can be very dry and even more boring. But when carefully crafted with the proper ratio of ingredients, plus a little flavor—these thick buttery cookies melt in your mouth and the words dry + boring only belong to plain rice cakes and cardboard. Still need convincing? Try pinwheel cookies or pistachio chocolate chunk slice and bake cookies next. I’ve sort of explained all this before, so I’ll just recap here. The dough for these slice-and-bake cookies is similar to my cranberry orange icebox cookies. The base recipe couldn’t be easier: flour, sugar, egg and butter. Creamed butter and brown sugar is the base; brown sugar because there’s flavor and moisture there! A teensy bit of vanilla extract adds more wonderful flavor, while the egg keeps the cookies from crumbling all over your hands and lap. You’ll need 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons of flour. I know that amount is weird. Why the 2 extra Tbsp? Well, you’ll add 2 Tablespoons of fresh-squeezed juice from delicious Sunkist oranges. More on that in a sec. The 2 Tablespoons of flour keep the added moisture in check and prevent the cookies from over-spreading. A pinch of cinnamon, fresh orange zest, and just enough finely chopped walnuts for flavor. You can leave out the walnuts, I just added them because NUTS belong in all cookies. I know .01% of you agree. Please comment if you agree so I don’t feel nuts! (Get it??) The dough is soft, but sturdy enough to be shaped into logs. What I mean by that is this: you’ll take the dough, turn it out onto a floured work surface, divide in two, roll into logs, wrap the logs in plastic wrap, and refrigerate. That all sounds like a lot of work but it will take you all of, like, 2 minutes. What I love about this log business is that you can slice off however many cookies you want to bake and eat at any given time. The dough can chill in the refrigerator for 5 days, but I’ve kept it in there for a week and the cookies still taste fabulous. Roll the logs in a little coarse sugar for sparkle, just like I do for brown sugar shortbread cookies. This is optional, but it’s pretty. So is it really optional then??? See that gorgeous orange zest in the cookie? I love it. So much flavor. This is a recipe I’m making in partnership with Sunkist and their juicy, refreshing navel oranges SHINE in these slice ‘n’ bake cookies. What better to pair with orange than dark chocolate? Truly an underrated flavor combination, chocolate and orange is not only spot-on delicious—the pair’s kinda perfect for Halloween, no? So good it’ll scare you. (I couldn’t help myself with that one!!!) These dark chocolate orange slice and bake cookies are soft in the centers, super thick and dense with crunchy edges, with lots of salted dark chocolate and orange zest. And I’m being serious about coating the entire thing in dark chocolate…
