The first thing i want to say is I wish I had come up with this recipe myself! However, I didn’t and credit is due to the pinner on Pinterest who shared this wonderful cookie recipe! I love chocolate and orange combinations, well I love and chocolate combination really, but chocolate and orange is a favorite. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of my favorite holiday, Christmas. I adore the Terry’s chocolate oranges that you can so readily find at the holidays, all wrapped in pretty foil and sliced just perfectly, making you want to eat each slice in delight, pretending you really are eating a real orange and not a ball of diabetic coma inducing sugar! Yum! When I saw this recipe all I could think is “I must make these now!” And I did. I ate 10 the first day and 3 the next then resisted what was left and let the family indulge. Every time I thought of eating another, I brought my mind to the morning workout torture I endure daily (all to be able to eat what I want, well, and have a healthy heart) and that was enough to make me begrudgingly walk away. If you have no willpower and fear eating the whole batch of cookies, you may want to rethink making these. Or if you are like myself, eat a pile then work them off, because I would hate for you to miss out on this recipe. The day I ate 3 of them, I had actually reheated them and topped them with a scoop of chocolate ice cream! This recipe is perfect the way it is, but I think the next time I make them  I will make them even zestier by adding the zest of 2 oranges instead of one. You can really play with how much orange flavor you wish for with this recipe, but like I said, they were darn near perfect just the way they are! Here is the recipe and the link to the pinners website from which I found these from on Pinterest! Feel free to follow me on Pinterest if you wish! http://www.nlrockrecipes.com/2011/12/orange-dark-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups butter

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3/4 cups cocoa powder

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

zest of one orange, finely minced

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla extract to the creamed mixture and meat until well combined. Sift together the cocoa, flout, baking soda and salt. Ad the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture along with the chocolate chips and orange zest. Mix well until dough forms then wrap them with plastic wrap and refrigerate several hours or overnight, I did about 3 hours. You must have the dough very cold when they go into the oven. Roll into 1″ balls, place on a parchment lined cooking sheet and bake at 350 or about 10 minutes or until they are done. Enjoy!