Mix, bake and cool slightly, these chocolate orange porridge oat cookies can be ready to eat from start to finish in about 30 minutes.

I don't know if a Terry's Chocolate Orange is a specifically British thing or if they are available worldwide but in many UK households Christmas is not Christmas without a Chocolate Orange. "Don't tap it, Whack it" "One of my 5 a day" and "It's not Terry's it's mine" are all common catch phrases linked to this most Christmassy of treats.

So for me chocolate and orange just go together, especially at this time of year and I've been experimenting with a family favourite cookie recipe to give them a chocolate orange twist.

I’m joining the 12 days of Cookies blog hop, hosted by Janet of Try it, Like it, Create it and sharing with you this easy cookie recipe full of the lovely Christmassy Chocolate Orange flavour.

I’ve got 2 variations of this recipe for you, one that uses actual Terry’s Chocolate Orange and one that uses substitute ingredients to give a similar flavour in case you can’t buy chocolate orange where you are.

Chocolate Chip & Orange Porridge Oat Cookies

Makes between 25 and 30

230g (1 cup) Baking Margarine or butter
230g (1 cup) caster sugar
2 eggs
300g (2 ½ cups) SR flour
150g (1 ¾ cups) porridge oats

Plus either:

2 tsps orange essence
Zest of 1 orange (optional but makes it more orangey)
100g (½ cup) plain chocolate chips
100g (½ cup) milk chocolate chips
100g (½ cup) chocolate for decoration

Or:

2 x 125g bags of Terry’s Chocolate Orange Mini Segments

* you can get an easy print version of this recipe here.

Heat the oven to 180 c 350 f gas 4

a bag of chocolate orange segments and the chocolate being chopped on a chopping board with a large knife

If you are using the Terry’s Chocolate Orange segments then take 1 of the 125g bags and chop into small pieces.

Beat the margarine/butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs and orange essence if using.
Stir in the flour, porridge oats and either the chocolate chips and zest or your finely diced chocolate orange.
Mix until it is well combined and forms a fairly stiff dough.
Use a dessert spoon to spoon out blobs of mixture onto the baking tray.
Leave a bit of room between them as they can spread just a little.
Bake for 12 - 15 minutes until golden brown, then cool on a cooling rack.

cookies on a baking tray before baking and after

Decorate the cookies

If you are using the chocolate orange then set aside a mini segment for each cookie and melt the remaining chocolate segments. If you don’t have chocolate orange just melt the chocolate you have for decorating. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies and pop a segment onto each cookie if using before it sets.