Black Forest Cookies

In my book, when you put together cherries and dark chocolate, you've got a Black Forest something ... today, it's cookies for me. I have baked up a batch of these tasty cookies as a 'thank-you gift' for Richard, my daughter's employer. You see, Richard holds season tickets to Boston Red Sox games at Fenway Park in Boston. For fans like SB and I, a pair of tickets to see the Sox is just about the finest thing we could ever wish for once the season starts. The only thing finer would be good seats in front of the TV watching them play in  win the 2013 World Series. That seems to be putting the cart before the horse though, as our boys are just seven games into the 2013 season!

Last week, we received a phone call from Sprout Sara. Richard had two tickets for the third game of the Red Sox opening home series. Would we like them? WOULD WE LIKE THEM ?!? There is an entire series of questions involving a bear/woods, Popes/Catholicism, fat babies .... yeah, well. YES! The answer was yes! So, these cookies have been baked with love and gratitude and tomorrow, we head off to Beantown to deliver these cookies to Richard, grab those precious tickets, hug our sweet girl, and head off to see our boys of summer try to beat the Baltimore Orioles. Hopes are high here in the grey cottage! We're whistling "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" and "Sweet Caroline" and getting psyched!



As for these cookies, they fit all of Richard's criteria - sweet, chewy, and full of dark chocolate. They bake up crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside and the little bits of dried cherries add just the right amount of tang to all that chocolate flavour. A worthy recipe ...

The other nice thing about this recipe is its size ... there are only 2 dozen cookies yielded from this batch. I'm liking that because we can have cookies for several days and then move on to other fresh baked treats. When you have only two knoshers in a household and no job to go to (so as to pawn off the rest of the calories), small batch baking is the way to go. So there you have it! Cookies and milk ... as American as apple pie and baseball! Yahoo!

Black Forest Dark Chocolate Cookies

Makes: 2 dozen 2 ½ inch cookies

Ingredients:

1 ½ c. flour

¼ c. cocoa powder

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

¼ c. unsalted butter

¼ c. margarine

½ c. light brown sugar

½ c. sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. dark chocolate chips

½ c. dried cherries, coarsely chopped

Making the Cookies:

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. In and vane bowl, whip the butter, margarine, and sugars together until the crytals start to break down.
3. Add the egg and vanilla extract and whip until smooth.
4. Turn the flour/cocoa mixture into the wet ingredients and mix by hand to make a stiff cookie dough.
5. Fold in the chocolate chips and cherries.
6. Roll the cookie dough into balls about 1 ½ inch in diameter (about the size of walnuts).
7. Preheat the oven to 365° F and line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
8. Place the cookie balls on the cookie sheets about 2 inches apart – a dozen to each sheet. Use a fork to flatten the cookies just slightly.
9. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes.
10. Cool on the cookie sheets and then place in a tightly covered container for storing.