Gluten-Free Orange Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more.
This buttery Gluten-Free Orange Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies recipe is DELICIOUS, packed with fresh orange zest & plenty of chocolate in every bite.
Holiday cookie week is starting out STRONG today! I’m so excited to share all our new recipes with you!
IMO, this gluten-free orange chocolate chunk shortbread is a MAJOR step up from classic shortbread recipes. (That chocolate orange combo gets me every single time!)
From the delicate, buttery texture to the vibrant notes of fresh orange and rich dark chocolate, this gluten-free shortbread cookie recipe is a total delight from start to finish. It’s easy to make (no cookie cutters required!), calls for just a few simple ingredients, and–bonus!–there’s no eggs in this recipe, so they’re ALSO great holiday cookies for people with dietary restrictions!
This simple cookie delicious on its own with a cup of hot chocolate or a cup of tea, but it also looks GORGEOUS for cookie exchanges & treat plates.
Speaking of simple ingredients, let’s get started! Here’s what you need for these buttery shortbread cookies…
Simple Ingredients To Get Started
This gluten-free shortbread recipe is mostly made with pantry staples. You’ll just need a few fresh & new ingredients to get going!
- Sugar & Brown Sugar. A mix of granulated sugar and brown sugar strikes the perfect balance of taste & texture here.
- Orange Zest. Fresh orange zest adds vibrant orange flavor to this shortbread, without watering it down.
- COLD Butter. Just like our gluten-free Levain Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, you’ll start these cookies with cold, cubed butter, rather than softened or room-temperature butter. It gets creamed with the sugars for delicious flavor and texture. (I don’t recommend a vegan butter substitute like Earth Balance here.)
- Vanilla. Some vanilla extract elevates the notes of chocolate & orange in these cookies. So good!
- Gluten-Free Flour. We recommend King Arthur Measure-For-Measure Gluten-Free Flour. If you use another 1:1 gluten-free flour blend, be sure it contains xanthan gum. Coconut flour, oat flour, and almond flour are not good substitutes in this recipe.
- Salt. A must for the best flavor!
- Chocolate Chunks. Now, for the best part: the chocolate! I recommend cutting dark or bittersweet chocolate bars into chunks rather than buying pre-made chocolate chunks, since you’ll get the best appearance, flavor, and texture. (The variety of chocolate shard sizes is what gives these orange chocolate chunk shortbread cookies their signature look!)
WE ♥
Measure It Right!
To get the perfect texture, measuring the flour correctly is key! Measure the flour in grams using a kitchen scale or use the scoop and level method to spoon flour into the measuring cup for best results.
Do NOT use your measuring cup to scoop the flour, or you’ll pack too much flour into the cookies, which changes the texture.
How To Make Orange Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, Step By Step
As always, you can find the full recipe, with ingredient amounts, detailed instructions, and tips in the recipe card below.
First, Make & Shape The Cookie Dough
- Rub Orange Zest Into Sugar. Add granulated sugar and orange zest to the bowl of a stand mixer. Use clean hands to rub the orange zest into the sugar, until it’s fragrant, and the sugar is tinted orange. (This distributes the orange essential oils into the sugar, which gives the cookies a more vibrant citrus flavor.!)
- Cream Butter & Sugars. Add brown sugar and butter cubes to the mixer and cream with the paddle attachment on medium speed 2-3 minutes, or until smooth and well blended. Add vanilla and mix to combine.
- Add Dry Ingredients. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add gluten-free flour and salt. Mix on low speed until no large patches of flour remain. (The shortbread dough will look fairly dry and crumbly at this point–this is normal!)
- Mix in Chocolate. Add chopped chocolate chunks and mix on LOW speed until just evenly incorporated. The dough will still look crumbly, but should hold together when pinched between your fingers.
- Shape & Chill Dough. Gather the dough into a big ball. Divide shortbread cookie dough in half and shape each half of the dough into a roughly 6-inch log shape. It’s okay to really pack it together! Wrap each cookie dough log in a piece of plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator at LEAST 2 hours, up to 3-4 days.
Bake The Cookies
- Preheat & Prep. When you’re ready to bake, heat oven temperature to 350 degrees F and position rack in the center of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice & Prep Dough. Remove one log of dough from the fridge and use a sharp serrated knife to slice into 12 slices. If you hit a large chocolate chunk that makes slicing difficult, use a gentle sawing motion to work your way through it. If the dough happens to crack, it’s 100% fine to just pinch it back together. The dough is pretty forgiving
- Bake & Cool Cookies. Place 12 cookie slices on prepared baking sheet and bake in preheated oven 11-13 minutes, or until set. (The cookies will not brown much, if at all!) Allow cookies to cool 1-2 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat this process with the second log of dough for another 12 cookies.
- Serve & Store. Enjoy right away or store in an airtight container at room temperature 2-3 days. Or, freeze baked cookies in a freezer bag up to 2 months!
Try Dipping Them In Chocolate!
For a pretty touch, you can also dip these cookies in chocolate! You’ll need 6 ounces of chocolate.
- Melt. In a microwave-safe bowl, gently melt 4 ounces of chocolate in 10-15 second intervals, stirring in between each interval, until the chocolate is almost all melted.
- Add Remaining Chocolate. Stir in the remaining 2 ounces of chocolate until smooth and melted. (This is called “seeding” and it helps temper the chocolate so it dries with a glossy sheen instead of streaky!)
- Dip cookies halfway into the chocolate and tap excess melted chocolate off into the bowl.
- Dry. Set chocolate dipped cookies on a sheet of parchment paper and let chocolate set completely before eating or storing.
FAQ + Tricks For The Best Gluten-Free Shortbread
Don’t Skip The Chill! I know it’s annoying to wait for dough to chill, but it’s a critical step for these gluten-free chocolate chunk shortbread cookies. If you don’t chill the dough, it won’t slice as well, and the cookies will spread significantly in the oven. No bueno!
Use Good-Quality Chocolate Bars, Not Pre-Cut Chunks. If possible, I highly recommend chopping your own chocolate bars for these gluten-free shortbread cookies. (We like Ghirardelli 60% bars.) Pre-made chocolate chunks sometimes have a powdery coating, and they’re more uniform. Part of the signature look of these cookies is the uneven, almost jagged chocolate chunks in a different sizes & shapes. It’s worth doing yourself! I promise!
Zest Properly. When zesting an orange (just like when you zest a lemon!), you want JUST the colorful orange zest, NOT the bitter white pith underneath. Using just the zest will give you the best orange flavor! (A microplane zester makes this easy!)
Use The Good Butter! Butter is one of the main flavors in shortbread, so if it works for your budget, this is a great time to use high-quality butter. I love European-style butter (like Kerrygold butter!) for shortbread.
🌟 Did You Make This Recipe?
Tell me all about it! Leave a star rating below when you try our Gluten-Free Orange Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies recipe. I can’t wait to hear how it goes!
Gluten-Free Orange Chocolate Chunk Shortbread
Ingredients
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- Zest of 1 orange about 2 teaspoons orange zest
- ¼ cup light brown sugar (50 grams)
- 1 cup cold butter, cut into cubes* (226 grams/2 sticks)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups gluten-free measure-for-measure flour* (300 grams)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt*
- 6 ounces dark chocolate, cut into chunks (170 grams)
Instructions
- Rub Orange Zest Into Sugar. Add granulated sugar and orange zest to the bowl of a stand mixer. Use clean hands to rub the orange zest into the sugar, until it’s fragrant, and the sugar is tinted orange. (This distributes the orange essential oils into the sugar, which gives the cookies a more vibrant citrus flavor.!)
- Cream Butter & Sugars. Add brown sugar and butter cubes to the mixer and cream with the paddle attachment on medium speed 2-3 minutes, or until smooth and well blended. Add vanilla and stir to combine.
- Add Dry Ingredients. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add gluten-free flour and salt. Mix on low speed until no large patches of flour remain. (The dough will look fairly dry and crumbly at this point–this is normal!)
- Mix in Chocolate. Add chocolate chunks and mix on LOW speed until just evenly incorporated. The dough will still look crumbly, but should hold together when pinched between your fingers.
- Shape & Chill Dough. Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a roughly 6-inch log. It’s okay to really pack it together! Wrap each log in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator at LEAST 2 hours, up to 3-4 days. DON’T skip the chill time, or your cookies will not slice nicely & will spread too much in the oven.
- Preheat & Prep. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice & Prep Dough. Remove one log of dough from the fridge and use a sharp serrated knife to slice into 12 slices. If you hit a large chocolate chunk that makes slicing difficult, use a gentle sawing motion to work your way through it. If the dough happens to crack, it’s 100% fine to just pinch it back together. The dough is pretty forgiving
- Bake & Cool Cookies. Place 12 cookie slices on prepared baking sheet and bake in preheated oven 11-13 minutes, or until set. (The cookies will not brown much, if at all!) Allow cookies to cool 1-2 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat this process with the second log of dough for another 12 cookies.
- Serve & Store. Enjoy right away or store in an airtight container at room temperature 2-3 days. Or, freeze baked cookies in a freezer bag up to 2 months!
Notes
- COLD Butter. You’ll start this recipe with COLD butter, cut into chunks. Much like our Levain cookie recipe, the cold butter helps control the spread of the cookies. Don’t use softened butter for this recipe.
- Gluten-Free Flour. We highly recommend King Arthur Measure-For-Measure Gluten-Free Flour for these cookies for taste & texture. If you use another brand of gluten-free flour blend, be sure it contains xanthan gum for best results.
- Do It Right! Weigh the flour using a kitchen scale or use the scoop and level method to spoon flour into the measuring cup for best results. Do NOT use your measuring cup to scoop the flour, or you’ll pack extra flour into the cookies, which changes the texture.
- Chocolate Chunks. Chop your own chocolate bars into chunks for best results. We like Ghirardelli 60% bars! You want a variety of shapes & sizes in your chocolate chunks. Pre-cut chocolate chunks tend to look too uniform and don’t have the same texture.
- Salt. If you’re using fine table salt instead of kosher salt, reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon.
Video
Find the recipe:
sweetsandthankyou.com/orange-chocolate-chunk-shortbread/
I hadn’t had this pairing before, but it is amazing! The orange and chocolate blend beautifully and I love the shortbread cookie