Chocolate Covered Gluten-Free Orange Shortbread Cookie Sticks are the best gluten-free shortbread cookies we’ve tried. The name is a perfect description of the product, but what it doesn’t tell you is that the orange and chocolate combination are an incredibly delicious compliment to the crumbly rich shortbread base.

Don’t let that beast of a name intimidate you. They’re actually fairly easy to make, even though they may look (and their name sounds) complicated.

Easy Step-By-Step Instructions for Chocolate Covered Gluten-Free Orange Shortbread Cookie Sticks 

Add 9 tablespoons softened unsalted butter and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and mix well with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined. Don’t cream or aerate the mixture, as that can make the shortbread spread out in the oven and lose its shape.

Free Printable Recipe for Chocolate Covered Gluten-Free Orange Shortbread Cookie Sticks

Chocolate Covered Gluten-Free Orange Shortbread Cookie Sticks

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Servings 36

Ingredients

  

Shortbread Cookie Stick Ingredients

• ½ cup 100 grams granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons orange zest 2 medium oranges
• 9 tablespoons 130 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups + 2½ tablespoons 260 grams CUP4CUP gluten free flour
• ½ cup 60 grams cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2½ tablespoons 40 grams freshly squeezed orange juice

Chocolate Coating Ingredients

• 1 cup 150 grams semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
• 2 tsp melted coconut oil optional

Instructions

 

Shortbread Cookie Stick Instructions

• Line a large baking sheet with parchment, and preheat the oven to 350º F.
• In a large bowl, combine sugar and orange zest, and use your fingertips to rub the zest into the sugar. This will release more essential oils from the zest. Add softened butter and vanilla, and mix well with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined. (Don’t cream or aerate the mixture, as that can make the shortbread spread out in the oven and lose its shape.)
• Sift in the gluten-free flour, cornstarch, and salt. Mix it all together until you get a fairly dry mixture – it will be very crumbly and it won’t stick together very well.
• Add the orange juice, and mix well until the cookie dough starts coming together.
• Knead thoroughly (because it’s gluten free, and you don’t need to worry about over-working the dough) until it forms a smooth ball. The cookie dough shouldn’t be too crumbly, it will hold together well – but it also shouldn’t be sticky to the touch.
• Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper to form a rough rectangle about 1cm (about ⅓-½ inch) thick and just over 12cm (4½ inches) wide. Rolling between sheets of parchment paper means that you don’t need to flour your work surface, and makes the cut out cookies much easier to transfer to the baking sheet.
• Trim the dough rectangle so that it’s 12cm (4½ inches) wide, with straight edges. Then, use a bench scraper or a sharp knife to cut it into about 1cm (about ⅓-½ inch) wide cookie sticks. You should get cookie sticks that are about 12cm (4½ inches) long, 1cm (⅓-½ inch) wide and 1cm (⅓-½ inch) thick.
• Re-roll any scraps to make more cookie sticks. You should get about 36 in total.
• Using an offset spatula, carefully transfer the cookie sticks onto the prepared baking sheet. Make sure that they’re as straight as you can get them. You can arrange the cookie sticks fairly close together, as they don’t spread during baking.
• Bake at 350ºF for about 15-18 minutes or until they’re light golden all over with only slightly darker, golden brown ends. Allow to cool on baking sheet for about 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Coating Instructions:

• Combine chocolate chips and coconut oil in a microwave safe bowl, and melt in microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring in between. You want to be able to achieve an even, fairly thin layer of chocolate on the shortbread. So add another teaspoon of coconut oil if the melted chocolate is too thick. If you want to be extra fancy, you could substitute high quality chocolate for the chocolate chips, and temper it. Here are instructions for how to do that, if you should desire to go that route.
• Transfer the melted chocolate into a narrow glass or other narrow container that will give you a deep layer of chocolate (you want to be able to dip at least half of a cookie stick into chocolate). Dip the cookie sticks into the melted chocolate. After dipping, gently shake them to help any excess chocolate to drip away, then transfer the chocolate-dipped cookie sticks onto a lined baking sheet.
• If you want, you can transfer any remaining chocolate into a piping bag (re-melt it if necessary) and use it to pipe zig-zag lines over the chocolate-dipped end of the cookie stick. Alternatively, you can also decorate them with sprinkles of choice.

Notes

Store in a closed air-tight container in a cool dry place for about 1-2 weeks.