Chocolate ‘n Orange ‘n Nuts ‘n Cookie ‘n YUM!

Yesterday, we learned how Giada De Laurentiis has crazy fun times by skinning roasted hazelnuts with a kitchen towel.

Today, we’re gonna take those roasted and skinned hazelnuts, chop ’em up a bit and toss ’em with some sliced almonds – also roasted, but no crazy fun times deskinning – then combine ’em with some good orange marmalade, a bit of melted, dark chocolate, and one fine sugar cookie to make a wicked good dessert.

Giada offered this recipe up on her Food Network show, but she called for using refrigerated sugar cookie dough.

I think not.

You could, certainly, use store bought sugar cookie dough – but how much better to make your own, especially when the BEST sugar cookie recipe ever is available – courtesy of Alton Brown? I use this dough to make faux madeleines, thumbprint cookies, even, on occasion, sugar cookies, so I thought it only right that I pull out two sticks of butter and pop ’em in the mixer bowl first thing in the morning to make a base for all those nuts and stuff.

INGREDIENTS
Cookie Dough:
•3 cups flour
•3/4 tsp baking powder
•1/4 tsp salt
•Grated fresh lemon or orange zest, optional
•1 cup butter, softened
•1 cup sugar
•1 egg, beaten
•1 tbsp milk

Toppings:
•1 cup orange marmalade
•1-1/2 cup toasted, chopped nuts – I used hazelnuts and almonds
•1 cup chocolate chips – I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao, and am never going back to the yellow bag!

First, let’s do the cookie dough:

Heat your oven to 375º.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together – add the zest now, too, if you’re using it (I used one medium orange) in a bowl and set aside.

Add the sugar to the softened butter in a mixing bowl and beat until light in color.

Beat in the egg and milk until well combined, then add the flour mixture gradually, combining on low until the dough pulls away from the side of the mixing bowl.

At this point, if you were making cut-out sugar cookies, you’d gather the dough into a ball, wrap it in waxed paper, and stash it in the fridge for an hour or so; but for THIS recipe, we’re just gonna spread it out to about 9x12x1/4 inch thick onto a parchment paper lined baking pan. If you don’t have parchment paper, you could just use cooking spray on the pan, but the little bits o’ parchment hanging over the edge will give you a convenient handle to lift the dough onto a board or a serving platter – I’m jus’ sayin’.

Bake for eight to fifteen minutes – mine was nicely done at about ten, so watch it – remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Spread the marmalade over the cooled dough and top with the chopped nuts.

Pop your chocolate chips into the ‘wave at half power for sixty to ninety seconds to melt them. Stir until smooth and drizzle over the cookie, marmalade and nut deliciousness with the edge of a spoon.

Pretty.

And OH! so tasty, too!

Giada cut hers into twelve bars and served them individually; I like to present this whole and cut it into more like sixteen or twenty pieces at the table. Store any leftovers (yeah, right) in an air-tight container.