Chocolate week, baking week, is there any week that isn't a week, cookies!

Hello. You may remember a few weeks back was National Cupcake Week, in honour of which I created some peanut butter & jam cupcakes. Well I posted a piccie of said cupcakes on the Baking Mad Facebook page & ended up winning a pack of orange flavour buttons which I probably got a bit too excited about. If you're not a fan already I'd recommend joining, they often run giveaways & competitions. The Baking Mad website is also worth a look for all things related to baking & cupcake making!

So they are the inspiration for this weeks recipe, which I created to celebrate both Chocolate Week (last week) & Baking Week (this week) It never ceases to amaze me the number of 'weeks' we actually have, although I feel there's a critical one missing. I think we absolutely have to have a 'National Eat Crisps Week' where every meal has to be accompanied by a potato based snack! Who's with me??

The orange buttons are made from cocoa butter & made a great cookie topping, I also added some natural orange essence to the cookie dough mixture to create the perfect chocolate orange cookie.

100g unsalted butter
140g caster sugar
1 egg
140g SR flour
25g cocoa powder
2tsps natural orange essence
Pack of Silver Spoon orange flavour buttons

1. Cream the butter & sugar until light & fluffy, then beat in the egg gradually until you have a lovely smooth batter.

2. Sift in the flour & cocoa powder & fold together, finally add the orange essence.

3. Place small dollops of cookie dough onto a baking sheet, add some buttons to the top. Don't worry it they look a bit squished, they'll spread out when the cook.

4. Bake in the oven at 180c/GM4 for around 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool completely & crisp up.

Looking at the finished article they would probably be quite good for a Halloween party if you were that way inclined? As my friend pointed out, there were a few of them that ended up looking like something out of the Mighty Boosh, google it, you'll see! Enjoy, Rebecca x