White Chocolate Orange Cookies

During the Christmas holidays I was persuaded to try this recipe by the enthusiastic reviews of my Cooking Friends--What A Dish!, Cookin'Mama, LadyJayPee, IMVintage, and Tunisianswife, and I'm so glad I did--my family loved it. I used a combo of semi-sweet and the semi-sweet/white chocolate swirl chips and finely chopped pecans. I also used 1/2 teaspoon orange extract, but I did not add orange zest (not a big fan!), and I added 1 teaspoon vanilla. The first time I made them, I used all butter, and the second time I used part butter/part shortening. I personally like the combo of butter and shortening in a cookie because I think shortening adds a little crispness. Great versatile recipe--on my keeper list!

These were good! Like Cookin'mama, I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour with good results. I also added 1 tsp vanilla. And like What a Dish!, I added pure orange extract (1/2 tsp). I also used the zest from two satsuma oranges. I divided the dough in half and used white chocolate chips (real ones) in half and mini-semisweet chocolate chips in the other, & used only half the amount of each (1/2c each). Both were delish. Thanks for the great cookie recipe, Jennifer!

WOW, are these good!! I absolutely love them! So good! I had a little trouble getting the orange zest, but all I had were satsumas, and I take it they're not the best to zest, lol. So I stopped after I had 1 teaspoon (that alone took over 10 minutes!) and just put 3/4 teaspoon of organic orange extract in the dough along with the zest. My bag of white chocolate chips was 12 oz. which was a little over 2 cups, but I threw them all in anyways- I loooove white chocolate. After the first batch was in the oven I remembered that some reviewers had said these cookies don't spread out at all, so I lightly flattened the rest with a fork and liked how those turned out better. These have a perfect texture- I baked for 9 minutes. I like that they don't have tons of sugar like some other recipes (although the white chocolate kind of makes up for that!). I used 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour and omitted the salt because I used salted butter. White chocolate and orange are so scrumptious together. These are sooo good and I think I might make them again for Christmas!