I have really been trying to buy fruits and vegetables that are outside of my normal repertoire, like watermelon and pineapple and beets. Not that I don’t like those things, I love them. They are just a little more high maintenance than my typical apples, blueberries, and cucumbers. You know, you have to cut them up and then there is juice everywhere and you have to clean it all up. BUT the delicious payoff is totally worth all that work.
Go buy a watermelon if you haven’t this year yet. Knock on them and pick out the more hollow sounding ones. These are the best ones, just FYI.
Anyways, I’m not here to talk about watermelon. I was just excited about it. I’m here to talk about these chocolate orange pistachio cookies.
That was a quick transition between too semi-unrelated things, but hey, it’s Saturday. Just go with it.
These are basic chocolate drop cookies with chocolate chips, orange zest, and pistachios added in the mix.
This cookie dough is then rolled in more sugar, orange zest, and chopped up pistachios before being baked to perfection. So you know, all good things.
I will warn you: the dough can get pretty sticky and messy. I recommend keeping it in the fridge, then grab out small portions at a time to roll into dough balls. This will somewhat help save you from having a huge mess. It will still be messy, just not as messy as it could have been.
Again, the delicious payoff is totally worth the work.
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 6 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
- 2 tablespoons pistachios, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons orange zest
- 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup pistachios, roughly chopped
- ⅓ cup dark chocolate chips
- In a small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In another small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon orange zest, and 2 tablespoons finely chopped pistachios. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes.
- Add the egg, vanilla, and the remaining tablespoon of orange zest, beat well.
- Add in the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly.
- Stir in the chocolate chips and roughly chopped pistachios.
- Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- When chilled, roll the dough into balls (about a heaping teaspoon). Then press the balls into the sugar/zest/pistachio mixture. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet with a few inches in between.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool the cookies on the sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
The recipe was slightly adapted from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook.
The thing about pistachios: you can’t eat just one. The same goes for these cookies.
Ok. Now I’m going to go shopping. I hope you have a great Saturday and eat lots of watermelon and cookies (after you exercise)!