I am grateful for cookies.
I am grateful for cookies not just because they taste good but because it was cookies that drew me into the kitchen when I was a child. On the weekends my sisters and I baked cookies: oatmeal, chocolate chip, almond thins, chocolate crinkle. I grew to love baking, and soon that love for baking turned into a love for cooking.
Cookies were a staple of my childhood, but I haven’t baked many cookies recently. When I set out to make two batches of cookies yesterday, I felt giddy. Cookies! Warm, homemade cookies! Dipped in a glass of cold milk! I was a kid again.
These cookies are a jazzed-up version of the classic chocolate chip cookie. Dark chocolate chunks replace the traditional chips, and a combination of sour cherries, apricots and pecans simultaneously add sweet, salty, chewy, crunchy flavors and textures. I especially love the combination of sour cherries and dark chocolate chunks. If you don’t have the exact mix-ins, bake them anyway with whatever you have on hand—you can’t go wrong.
Makes about 3 dozen
Ingredients:
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks (½ pound) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
9 ounces good bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, cut into ½-inch pieces
¾ cup (4½ ounces) quartered dried apricots
1 cup (5 ounces) dried sour cherries
1 cup (4 ounces) coarsely chopped pecans
Preparation:
Put racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 375°F.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in flour mixture at low speed until just combined. Stir in chocolate, apricots, cherries, and pecans.
Drop heaping tablespoons of dough about 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until golden, about 12 minutes total. Cool cookies on sheets on racks for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool.
Hello! My name is Andrea, and I’m a freelance writer living in the lovely, hilly city of San Francisco with my husband Sam.
I feel like I made these cookies with you after talking to you and listening to you chop, mix, etc…
Wish I could sit down with a glass of milk and eat them with you! Have fun with your houseguests, tell them hi for me!
Yes, it did feel like you were right there making these with me.
Next time we are together, we’ll have to incorporate cooking into our activities!
yes, these were amazing…all week.
So glad you liked them! They certainly were a good accompaniment to our many teatimes!
Sounds delicious! I make a great chicken salad with dried cherries.
http://michaelbeyer.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/roasted-chicken-salad-with-dried-cherries-and-peanuts/