Friday, December 28, 2012

White & Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

This is what Christmas day looked like in our part of Texas. 
 If we ever do get snow in our town it normally doesn't stick so it's not really snow, but this year we got at least 4-6 inches of the white stuff. Before I got sick I used to love the snow, but the freezing temperatures are too much for me now so I only got a handful of pictures. Our goats {Annabelle & Princess} who have been sporting their thick winter coats looked like little cotton balls because they are so fluffy!! Nala, our huge potbelly pig hasn't come out of her house since the temperatures have dropped and I doubt we'll see her until New Years. 
White Christmas
Christmas was a simple celebration this year. Our family really isn't one to go all out for the holidays like the families you see in the Christmas movies, but it suits us. I ended up getting a flash for my camera, many White Barn Nutmeg and Spice candles & wallflowers from Bath & Body Works which smell AMAZING, and a new laptop which I was going to buy myself, but my mom got it for me. I've decided that I might keep my old laptop for my photography and use my new one mainly for school. 

Speaking of school, I almost had a panic attack because my first grade was almost a ZERO instead of an 80. Because it's an online wintermester computer class you have to download and work on several documents at once in order to get your final result. Well, we also have to name out files a certain way so the teacher knows what class you are in and I wasn't paying that much attention to what file I was opening and ended up sending him one of the blanket downloads instead of my 7 page finished product {both have to same name, but are in different folders}. I soon realized my mistake and sent him the right document which he was kind enough to not deduct points from since it was late because this was our first major project. My grade was a 73 which is much, much better than a 0 and I know now which folder I keep my final projects in.

 Lesson learned. 


  About a week ago I decided that I wanted to bake something with dried cherries since we have a huge bag that we got from Costco's. I found a recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction for white chocolate cranberry cookies which I thought would be a good base for these cookies. Since I'm not a big fan of white chocolate because of its sweetness I decided to use half dark and white chocolate chips. I used a small cookie scoop to measure out the cookies and my cookies ended up looking much different from Sally's flatter/rounder cookies, but they tasted really good. They ended up looking like my chocolate chip cookies which also uses cornstarch so the result is a small cloud-like cookie. My dad who I was expecting to not be a big fan of the cookies really liked them and when I told my mom what was in the cookie she was surprised that it all fit into a tiny cookie. 
White & Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies
  The dried cherries gives the cookies a tartness which goes well the the sweetness of the white chocolate and the richness from the dark chocolate. Again like my chocolate chip cookies, these cookies don't get much color and will look to be slightly under cooked when you pull them from the oven, but they are fully cooked.

White & Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies
Based off of this recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction. 
2 1/2 dozen

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup dried cherries {or dried cranberries}
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/3 cup dark chocolate chunks

1. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy. Stir in the egg and vanilla.
2. Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet in batches, until everything is incorporated. Stir in the dried cherries, white, and dark chocolate chips.
3. Chill for at least 30 minutes or overnight in the fridge.
4. Preheat oven to 350F & line a baking sheet with parchment. Using a small cookie scoop (1 1/2 Tbsp) measure out the dough with an inch of space between each cookie.
5. Bake for 8-9 minutes, or until the tops are still pale and the edges are slightly golden. *They won't have much color, but don't cook them longer than 9 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the pan for 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Store in an air-tight container.

2 comments:

  1. Mmmm... cherries and chocolate (especially dark) are so good together. I'm book marking this one! Ha ha, and I feel like that same thing happened to me with an online class once - dang technology! ;)

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  2. Lovely recipe.. love the combo of chocolate and berries, and in this case cherries. :) Thanks for stopping over. We have pumpkin available in the tri-state all year.. just isn't in your face all year.

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