Who needs viruses...?!

The late autumn dullness has reached its apogee...
My thoughts are already in Poland, I'm looking for Christmas recipes, making difficult ;) decisions which cookies to bake this year. I've prepared our Christmas offer* (for the restaurant and cafe) and cannot wait days full of baking and baking.
And everything would be just perfect, if not a malicious virus, which came no one knows where from... I'd planned three types of cookies and two cakes, yet, I managed to bake only one type of cookies and gingerbread cake. I missed the energy for more, especially today, I spent half day in bed, half-awake... Not much energy left to write even on a blog...
Today's cookies area baked from  a recipe for short-pastry chocolate-orange Christmas trees by Bea** - thank you! The only change I made was cutting them with a star cutter and skipping the chocolate decoration as in my opinion, cookies were already rich enough with chocolate pieces and candied peel inside.

Orange Chocolate Stars

150g unsalted butter
100g sugar
pinch salt
2 egg yolks
zest from one orange
50g bitter or bittersweet good quality chocolate, chopped into fine pieces
25g candied orange peel
250g all-purpose flour

In a large bowl cream the butter, then add sugar, salt and egg yolk and continue creaming until they form a uniform almost white mixture. Add the zested orange, finely chopped chocolate and candied peel. Mix well, then start adding the flour. Form a ball out of the dough, wrap in clingfilm and put into the fridge for at least 10 minutes. I usually leave the dough to chill for the whole night and bake the cookies in the morning.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Roll out the dough until it's 7mm thick*** (you might want to flour your working surface a bit). Cut cookies using cookie cutter and place cookies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake until they are just turning golden, about 11 minutes.  Transfer to racks to cool. When the cookies cooled down you can decorate them with melted chocolate. :)

*

**Bea took the recipe from from a book by Betty Bossi: ‘Noël et ses friandises’. 
***My stars were a bit thinner - 4 to 5mm. In order not to use additional flour for the working surface, I rolled the dough out between two pieces of baking parchment.