White Chocolate Chip

Currant and Orange Cookies

  From Honey and Co., London

These cookies are delicious at any time of year; Itamar Srulovich of London’s Honey & Co. even sandwiches them around vanilla ice cream. But thanks to their “festive feel, something about the tangy currants, the zesty orange and the sweet white chocolate,” he always brings them back around the holidays.

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Active Time: 15 minutes

makes: 16 cookies


Ingredients

  • 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (10 ounces) all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 9 tablespoons (4½ ounces) unsalted butter, softened
  • ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon (4½ ounces) light brown sugar
  • ½ cup plus 1½ tablespoons (4 ounces) superfine sugar
  • Zest of 1 orange
  • 1 extra-large egg
  • Generous 1 cup (10 ounces) dried currants
  • 5¼ ounces chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips

Directions

  1. In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
  2. Use a large wooden spoon and large mixing bowl (or a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, on low speed) to cream butter with both types of sugar and orange zest until creamy, but not too white and fluffy. Add egg and beat until fully combined, then add flour mixture, followed by currants and chopped white chocolate, and mix to make an even dough.
  3. Use a #16 (¼ cup) scoop to form dough into 16 large balls, each 1¾-2½ ounces. Set on a tray, cover in plastic wrap and freeze at least 1 hour. You can make and freeze the dough up to 3 months in advance. Once balls are frozen, place in an airtight container or zip-top bag, and return to freezer.
  4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove dough balls from freezer and place 8 at a time on a baking sheet, with plenty of space in between, as they will spread quite a bit. (It is best to bake these from frozen so the center stays gooey while the outside has crunch.) [After baking our first, our suggestion would be to use parchment paper on the baking sheet. ]
  5. Bake in center of oven for 10 minutes, then rotate baking sheet and bake until cookies have spread and turned a light golden color but still feel soft, 5 minutes more. Let cookies set on baking sheet before serving. They can be stored in an airtight container for at least 3 days.

Adapted from “Honey & Co. At Home” by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (Pavilion)
Copied from the WSJ

This recipe was published in:

Your Best Holiday Cookies Yet: Chefs Share Their Can’t-Miss Recipes

 By Charlotte Druckman

Note:

When we made these, the mix was very dry, so we splashed on some  half-n-half we had so that the mix looked like what we would expect for a cookie dough. In retrospect, I wish I'd squeezed some OJ out of the orange that was zested.