Orange Choc Chip Buttermilk Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

They are my ultimate comfort food, especially the home baked ones. Nothing beats the smell of freshly baked cookies, it's like a hug. For your nostrils. Okay that sounds weird, but hopefully you know what I mean. Right now, I'm home alone for the first time in ages and looking forward to curling up on the couch with a glass of milk and a plate of warm, gooey cookies. Sure, my mild lactose intolerance will make me regret it later, but it will totally be worth it.

These cookies were whipped up after searching the internet for good recipes to use up my leftover buttermilk. I came across these lemon glazed buttermilk cookies on Epicurious, but I didn't feel like lemon cookies. I needed a chocolate chip cookie fix! So I went with the classic combination of orange and chocolate. Dark chocolate, it always has to be dark chocolate chips for me.

These cookies are not going to be for everyone. The texture is very different to a regular chocolate chip cookie. The buttermilk makes them soft and fluffy in the middle, more like a cake than a biscuit. If you bake the outside until it's all lovely and golden, you'll still have a nice crunch on the outside. But if you like your choc chip cookies super crunchy, these aren't for you.

Personally, I usually prefer crunchy choc chip cookies over chewy ones. But these ones are nearly their own category of texture, they're not quite chewy and not quite hard, more like a cake cookie. I think I like them a lot, I'll let you know after I've pigged out on the rest of the batch :P The orange zest in the cookies makes them so fragrant, it's the perfect addition to the light cookie dough. Even better when you bite into them and find a pocket of melty dark chocolate.

I actually baked these cookies a little longer than the original recipe called for, I wanted them to have a bit more colour and crunch. It worked out pretty well I think, the buttermilk stops them from getting too dry, so don't get scared and take them out of the oven too early. This is a great easy recipe to use up any buttermilk you might have leftover in your fridge, especially because you can adjust the recipe amounts depending on how much buttermilk you've got leftover. But I demand you eat at least some of them when they are still warm not long after you've finished baking them.

Orange Choc Chip Buttermilk Cookies
(adapted from this Buttermilk Cookie recipe from Gourmet, makes approx 30 cookies)
3 cups (approx 450g) plain flour
zest of 1 orange, approx 1 tbsp
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
170g (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups (approx 340g) caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) with rack in middle. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper. Whisk together flour, zest, baking soda, and salt. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Mix in flour mixture and buttermilk alternately in batches at low speed, beginning and ending with flour mixture, until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.

Drop level tablespoons of dough about 1 1/2 inches apart onto baking sheets. Sprinkle a few extra chocolate chips over each cookie to pretty them up :) Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until cookies are puffed and golden, 13 to 15 minutes per batch. Cool cookies on sheets for 1 minute, then transfer cookies to racks. Best eaten warm, store in an airtight container in the fridge and then microwave for 20 seconds before serving.