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Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies. An orange cream chocolate in cookie form! A dark chocolate cookie base filled with sweet, fragrant orange cream and topped with rich dark chocolate.

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies photo showing orange cream centre

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies.

Originally published Dec 2016.

Yes, another chocolate orange recipe, this time Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies! I am a bit obsessed.

There’s everything chocolate-orange on this blog from cakes and trifle to this incredible cheesecake. Even Terry’s Chocolate Orange Chunk Cookies.

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies on a white serving plate

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies.

It’s the perfect flavour combination for the Holidays too. When I’ve eaten all the orange creams out of the chocolate boxes, these beautiful little cookies will be perfect to fill my cravings.

fresh organic clementines picked with green leaves

Make these with seasonal citrus like clementines during the Holidays .

Be sure to check out the other two versions of this thumbprint cookie with our Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies and our Midnight Mint Thumbprint Cookies.

You might also like our recipe for Terry’s Chocolate Orange Muffins:

Terry's Chocolate Orange Muffins photo with title text for Pinterest

Like this Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies recipe?

 
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Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies photo with title text for Pinterest

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Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies photo showing orange cream centre
Yield: 30 cookies

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Chocolate Orange Thumbprint Cookies - a dark chocolate cookie base filled with sweet, fragrant orange cream and topped with rich dark chocolate

Ingredients

For the chocolate thumbprint cookie dough

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder

For the Orange Cream Filling

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 2 cups icing sugar, powdered sugar
  • 1 tbsp to 2 milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp to 2 finely minced orange zest (I like more of the orange zest, some may not)

For the chocolate covering

  • 1 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup whipping cream

Instructions

To prepare the cookie dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar well.
  2. Beat in the egg.
  3. Beat in the vanilla extract and milk.
  4. Sift together the flour, salt, cocoa baking soda and baking powder.
  5. Blend the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture until a soft dough forms.
  6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Roll the dough into 3/4 to 1 inch balls and lay them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
  7. Using your thumb or the round end of the handle of a wooden spoon, make a deep indentation into the centre of each dough ball. about 3/4 of an inch wide.
  8. Bake for 15-17 minutes until firm to the touch when baked.
  9. When the cookies are removed from the oven, and while they are still warm, use the round end of a wooden spoon handle or similar instrument to press the centre depressions in the cookies down again to create a good "well" in the centre of the cookies.
  10. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before continuing to fill the cookies.

To prepare the orange buttercream filling

  1. Simply beat all of the ingredients together until smooth.
  2. You want this to be thicker than frosting, so only use as much milk as it takes to make a very stiff filling. You can always add a little more icing sugar if you use a little too much milk.

To prepare the chocolate covering

  1. In a small saucepan heat the whipping cream to almost boiling over medium low heat.
  2. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the chocolate chips until melted.

To assemble the cookies

  1. Using a piping bag or a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off, fill the cookie "wells" with the orange cream filling so that they dome a little over the height of the cookie.
  2. Spoon a dollop of the chocolate over the filling to cover it.
  3. Cool completely at room temperature until the chocolate sets.
  4. Store or freeze in airtight containers.

Recommended Products

Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.

Nutrition Information

Yield

30

Serving Size

cookie

Amount Per Serving Calories 190Saturated Fat 6gCholesterol 25mgSodium 108mgCarbohydrates 25gFiber 1gSugar 17gProtein 2g

The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.

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Beatrice

Saturday 12th of November 2022

Can you sub for the cocoa

Carlee

Saturday 6th of March 2021

Hi, these look great and I definitely want to give it a try. Is the nutrition information correct? 190 cal per cookie? Thanks!

Barry C. Parsons

Sunday 7th of March 2021

Thats what the software says when I plug in the ingredients.

Annie

Friday 23rd of December 2016

Just made these. They are amazing! But the orange flavour is a bit subtle. Next time I might add orange zest to the cookie dough as well.

Barry C. Parsons

Saturday 24th of December 2016

The orange will get stronger overnight as the flavour of the best incorporates more into the frosting but if you want to try more that's great too.

Howard Gottlieb

Tuesday 20th of December 2016

Have you gotten much feedback about the orange and chocolate combined flavors?

We have trade show meetings in December to find new cookie dough flavors to consider for fundraising so was curious.

Barry C. Parsons

Wednesday 21st of December 2016

A cookie dough consultation sounds like something I'd like to sit in on! ;) There are quite a number of chocolate orange dessert recipes on this website and all are quite popular. It's a favourite flavour combination of mine. There is a version of chocolate chip cookies that uses chunks of Terry's Chocolate Orange instead of chocolate chips. That gets rave reviews from readers all the time.

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