Cookies are for Sharing

I love to bake, but there is little self-control when it comes to baked goods in the Big Chef/Little Chef household. Therefore, we try to limit baking to times when we can share the delicious products with others. Yesterday was the perfect opportunity. I had the day off of work for "Spring Holiday" (hey, I'll take it), and we had plans with a group of grad students in Jamie's program that evening. I decided to make one of my favorite cookie recipes, Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with dried cherries and walnuts.

There are several versions of these cookies on the internet. I actually made a much healthier version a while back from a health and fitness magazine, but couldn't find the link yesterday. Since I have always gotten rave reviews with the Cooks Illustrated version of this recipe, I decided to ignore the butter content and just go with what I know works.

I hit up Trader Joes (TJ's) in the morning to pick up the ingredients I needed for the recipe. If you have a TJ's near you, I definitely recommend it for dried fruit, nuts and chocolate (so much cheaper than other grocery stores!).

Note: To get the "chocolate chip" sized chunks, I had to place the chocolate in a plastic bag and hit it with the edge of a mallet. I'm sure our neighbors loved all the noise.

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with dried cherries and walnuts (you can substitute any dried fruit/nut)

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups of rolled oats, old fashions

1 cup of toasted walnuts, chopped

1 cup of dried tart cherries, chopped coarse

4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (I used TJ's 72% dark Belgium chocolate)

12 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar (I actually only used 1 cup and they turned out just fine)

1 egg

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
   

2. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a second bowl, combine oats, pecans, cherries, and chocolate.

3. If you are lucky enough to have a standing mixer, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until no sugar lumps remain, about 1 minute. (Otherwise, if you're like me and lacking this miraculous device, you'll have to do this one by hand). Add egg and vanilla and beat until fully incorporated. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Gradually add in oat/nut mixture.

4. Roll dough into balls about 1-1 1/2 inch in diameter; stagger on each baking sheet. Press down to flatten out dough to about 1 inch thickness
   

5. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper. Bake 12 minutes, until edges are brown and middle looks a bit underbaked.
   

The cookies turned out great (as always). The original recipe called for pretty large cookies, but I made them closer to 3 inches in diameter. They taste almost like granola bars (granola bars that my mom would have never sent me to school with). We had a great time last night hanging out with Jamie's grad student friends, but the best part was watching one of the German grad students, who claims to "hate" american cookies, gobble down at least 4 of these things.

Lessons Learned:
1. Even when we bring cookies to a friend's house, Jamie still manages to eat more than his fair share. I would have probably been in the same situation, but I already ate my fair share of cookie dough =)
2. I really want a Kitchen aid stand mixer. This is the #1 reason why I would like to get married someday. I wish I were kidding about this.
3. The recipe calls for much larger cookies (about 4-5 inches in diameter cooked). I found those to be a bit too big the last time I made them, so tried smaller cookies (2-3 inches in diameter) this time. Something in the middle would probably work best (you'll have to cook this a bit longer if you make larger cookies).

In other news, Jamie promised that he would blog about his sweet potato/black bean burger creation, so hopefully you'll see his first blog post coming up soon.

Laura