Chocolate Chip & Sour Cherry Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup sour (tart) dried cherries
1 egg, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a medium sized bowl combine flour, salt, and baking powder. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and combine thoroughly. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the sweetened butter and mix until a very thick dough forms. Use a spoon or turn your mixer on very low to fold in the chocolate chips and cherries. Distribute them evenly. Form cookies by dropping 1 teaspoon of dough on the sheet two inches apart. Flatten slightly then bake until light brown, about 12 minutes. Remove (using a flat turner or spatula) to a wire rack to cool. If they seem very soft and you are leery of scooping them off the pan hot from the oven, carefully slide the cookies and the parchment paper onto the rack and cool about 3 minutes. Then they should be set up and cool enough to just use your hands to transfer them to a wire rack to thoroughly cool.

My thoughts:

With the East Coast hit by winter storms (in March!) I can’t think of a better time to bake cookies. While I generally enjoy fresh cherries, I don’t think I had actually had a dried cherry until I made this cookies. As I hoped, the cherries and dark chocolate were a winning combination. I am not a huge fan of super sweet desserts so this was perfect for me. It was also a nice change from the more typical dried cranberry. As for the cookie itself, I did what I always do when I bake cookies and try to see how light I can get the bottoms while still fully baking the cookie. I think I did fairly well.

cookietummy

The cookie came out fairly perfect texture-wise, just slightly soft and chewy on the inside and crisp and light on the outside.

25 Comments

  1. Amazing how you get the bottom of your cookies so light… what’s the secret? A special baking sheet? By the way, I think dried cherries are a delicious alternative to dried cranberries, as you said, whether in baked goods or savory items. I use dried cherries in a great italian sausage stuffing for Thanksgiving!

  2. Christina-
    I don’t use anything special, I just follow the above directions!

  3. Those look great – I know my mom would adore these cookies.

    Where did you get that great plate? Is that a stand?

  4. Tonia-
    It is a 2-tiered tray from Target, part of the Orla Kiely collection.

  5. Love the looks of these! I love dried cherries and chocolate, great combo!

  6. Cherry is a fun twist! Got to love the green nails too!

  7. Those did turn out the absolute perfect texture!

  8. Love love love the nail polish. You sassy thang.

  9. What cherries did you use? I love the dried bing cherries from Trader Joes. They look yummy!! Snow days are a great excuse to bake!

  10. Kristin-
    I am 99% sure they are dried Montmorency cherries.

  11. I love your nail color! Oh, and the cookies look good too! 😉

  12. I’m lucky enough to have had Rachel make me some of these and they were delish!

    Thanks, dearheart!

  13. It must be chocolate chip cookie week! Smitten Kitchen did a crispy chew chocolate chip cookie today too, and last wednesday Everybody Loves Sandwiches did chocolate and kumquat cookies… what next, chocolate chip-bacon cookies? 😉

    Now to decide which one to make this week….

  14. I completely agree with you that there is no better time to bake cookies than a snowstorm! My mom and I used to keep slice and bake cookies on hand for snowed in “emergencies” when we didn’t feel like bothering with dishes and there’s nothing like warm cookies fresh from the oven.

  15. Ooh! This looks kinda of like a cookie version of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream. Yum!

  16. Love the Orla tray 🙂

  17. Delish looking… i love cherry/choc combos…

  18. These sound fabulous. I love chocolate and sour cherry together. I made chocolate chunk sour cherry scones last month. You might like them. They are not sweet and they have a really light texture.

  19. Beautiful tray! Which reminds me that I need to finally put my own Orla Kiely tray into action. It looks equally good sitting on the nightstand, though!

  20. I had some cookies similar to these and loved them. I wanted to know how to go about making them… only difference wass, I noticed there was some coconut bits and sugary crystals at the top for texture. The coconut intrigued me. the cookies were deeelicious!!
    thank you for the recipe =)

  21. Can I make these with fresh sour cherries?

  22. I haven't but it is worth a shot!

  23. can I use can tart cherries in this recipe?

  24. That is what I used! Enjoy!