Welcome to Cookie Week! Every year in December, I spend a week baking and sweet making which isn’t exactly my specialty. We’ll work through it together! If you want to check out previous cookie weeks, zip over to the cookie archives!
I was so positive that the macaroons I made earlier were going to be my favorite cookie of the week. Not too sweet and great flavors. But no… these White Chocolate Orange Cookies jumped to the front of the line for me. I love everything about them. They start with a reduced beer syrup (win), use lots of orange zest and spice (win win), and are packed with white chocolate chips (win win win).
Plus, they are probably the easiest cookie I made this week!
There’s approximately zero reasons why you shouldn’t make them.
Belgian White Ale Orange Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 12-ounce white ales
- ¼ cup honey
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- 1 orange, zest only
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Pour beer and honey into a medium saucepan and heat over medium-high heat. Let the syrup reduce until you have about 1/3 cup of liquid. Stir regularly to make sure it doesn’t scorch. After it reduces, let the syrup cool.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together butter with sugars. Then add in egg and extract and stir to combine.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, coriander, baking soda, and orange zest. Mix half the dry ingredients into the creamed butter, followed by the reduced syrup, and then the rest of the dry ingredients.
- Add in white chocolate chips and mix until just combined.
- Spoon out dough on baking sheets in heaping tablespoon-sized cookies. You should get 16-20 cookies.
- Bake cookies at 350 degrees F. for 18-20 minutes, rotating halfway through.
- Let cookies cool briefly before serving.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Beer and Honey
You have to be careful what beer you use for this recipe. You don’t want anything hoppy at all. A wheat beer would work well, but the best option is a Belgian white ale. My favorite one lately is Avery’s White Rascal. You might not be able to find it everywhere, but if you can, it’s worth a shot.
Add the beer and the honey and cook it down until it’s a thick syrup. It should reduce to about 1/3 cup of liquid.
Making the Dough for White Chocolate Orange Cookies
Meanwhile, you can get your dry ingredients together.
Key spice: CORIANDER.
It completely ties together the flavors in the beer with the orange. Do not skip it.
When you zest the orange try to just get the very outer part of the orange. If you get a lot of the white pith, then it will be bitter instead of citrusy.
Whisk together the flour, spices, baking soda, and zest.
When your syrup has reduced and cooled, you can whip up the dough.
Cream together the butter and sugars and then add in the egg and vanilla.
Stir in half of the dry ingredients, followed by the syrup, followed by the rest of the dry stuff. Mix in the chocolate chips last and try not to over mix the dough.
Baking
I like to make big cookies when I make drop cookies. You could probably get two dozen smaller cookies out of this batch but I like to make 16 larger cookies.
The benefits of making them larger is that the cookies cook a bit uneven so you get a crispy outer edge but the interior part is still soft.
Go big on the cookies.
These will need to bake for 18-20 minutes at 350 degrees F. To make sure they cook evenly, rotate the cookies halfway through.
These White Chocolate Orange Cookies are great warm, cold, or really any way you can get them.
I ate two right away and then had another two or three throughout the next 24 hours.
I couldn’t stop!
White Chocolate Orange Cookies are a great way to end cookie week!
If you had a favorite cookie from the week, leave a comment! I’d love to see what people liked and which cookie you might try out!
Laura
I love that you use local beers! I would suggest you find something to make with my personal favorite Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout. I made a fabulous beer float (just add vanilla ice cream), so I can only imagine what you could come up with! Thanks for the inspiration!
Nick
I highly doubt I can come up with something better than the Nitro Milk Stout float… that’s incredible.
Kim Dailey
The White Rascal is one of my favorites! These cookies just moved to the top of my list!
DianeS
So my die-hard chocolate chip cookie loving husband was not very open minded about the idea of white ale, white chip cookies. When I finished them last night I shared one with him. Well, not only did he like it (that’s a big deal for him, liking something) he got up and got himself another one. That is like a super big deal which he only usually does for chocolate chip cookies. So I think we have a hit on our hands. Now I will bring the rest to my sister’s for Thanksgiving and see what my Germanic family thinks of them.