Last week when I made the Honeycomb Bars from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, I noticed another recipe in the cookbook that has been on my to-bake list for a long time: "Black Forest Chocolate Cookies." I have no good excuse for not making these cookies sooner -- all of the ingredients are items I usually have on hand.
To make the batter, you beat eggs, sugar, and brown sugar until thick and pale; add vanilla and a cooled mixture of butter melted with dark chocolate; add the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt); and fold in chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried cherries. The batter was very runny but you need to chill it for at least six hours before baking. I left mine in the fridge for 24 hours, during which time it firmed up nicely but still remained easily scoopable.
The recipe instructs you to drop the dough by "rounded tablespoons" onto a baking sheet and says that it yields two dozen cookies. Just looking at the batter, I knew there was no way that yield was going to be accurate. I made a double batch of cookies and the batter took up most of my seven-quart Kitchenaid mixing bowl. I used a #20 scoop (which is a little larger than three tablespoons) to portion out the dough and I got 70 cookies total. After finding that my first pan of cookies didn't spread very much in the oven, I flattened the rest of the cookies before baking and was much happier with the resulting flatter shape.
I was afraid that these cookies were going to be heavy and perhaps too chocolatey (yes, there is such a thing), because the recipe includes so much dark chocolate. My double batch contained two pounds of melted Scharffen Berger 70% chocolate, in addition to the semisweet chips and white chocolate chips. While the cookies were definitely rich, I loved the deep chocolate flavor which was so satisfying. I don't think the white chocolate chips added much to the cookie, though.
My favorite part was actually the dried cherries. I normally use dried Montmorency cherries from either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. For these cookies I tried cherries from nuts.com for the first time and they were large and super plump -- and they definitely delivered the delicious chocolate-cherry flavor I would expect from an homage to Black Forest cake. The only thing I would change if I made these again would be to add more cherries.
Recipe: "Black Forest Chocolate Cookies" from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here from Serious Eats.
To make the batter, you beat eggs, sugar, and brown sugar until thick and pale; add vanilla and a cooled mixture of butter melted with dark chocolate; add the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt); and fold in chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried cherries. The batter was very runny but you need to chill it for at least six hours before baking. I left mine in the fridge for 24 hours, during which time it firmed up nicely but still remained easily scoopable.
The recipe instructs you to drop the dough by "rounded tablespoons" onto a baking sheet and says that it yields two dozen cookies. Just looking at the batter, I knew there was no way that yield was going to be accurate. I made a double batch of cookies and the batter took up most of my seven-quart Kitchenaid mixing bowl. I used a #20 scoop (which is a little larger than three tablespoons) to portion out the dough and I got 70 cookies total. After finding that my first pan of cookies didn't spread very much in the oven, I flattened the rest of the cookies before baking and was much happier with the resulting flatter shape.
My favorite part was actually the dried cherries. I normally use dried Montmorency cherries from either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. For these cookies I tried cherries from nuts.com for the first time and they were large and super plump -- and they definitely delivered the delicious chocolate-cherry flavor I would expect from an homage to Black Forest cake. The only thing I would change if I made these again would be to add more cherries.
Recipe: "Black Forest Chocolate Cookies" from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here from Serious Eats.
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