SMS: Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

This week’s recipe was chosen by Megan of My Baking Adventures.  In addition to being a wonderful baker, blogger, and a mom, she’s going to Disneyland this week!  I know I’m jealous!  Thanks for a fantastic pick, Megan.

These cookies came together very easily.  I used regular cocoa in place of the dutch process and added an extra 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda per the instructions on Joy of Baking, which Nina pointed out to me (thanks Nina!), and the cookies came out wonderfully.  I really like Melissa’s log method of making cookies, especially because it makes it easier to avoid eating two dozen cookies in a week if you freeze some of the dough.  I just chilled the dough in the log form from the get-go, which worked well.  Unfortunately, despite these being called “double dark chocolate CHERRY cookies”, I somehow forgot to add the cherries, which I didn’t realize until the dough was already firmed up.  Yeah, I’m lame, I know.  I thought these cookies might have been a tiny bit on the sweet side, but I think if I’d remembered to add the tart cherries, that would have fixed that problem really quickly.  Since I definitely plan to make these again, I’ll remember next time.

I baked the first log of these on Thursday for about 13 minutes, and they turned out perfectly- crisp on the edges, but nice and soft in the middle.  On Saturday, my lovely friend Britni and I made a batch of lemon cookies (which I’ll try to post later this week), and I baked the last log of this dough.  I took some super fast pictures, then threw everything in a zipper bag and we (me, Britni, and my roommates for next year, Erik and Christian) got in Christian’s truck and drove to Arcola for one of the biggest fireworks shows in Illinois!  It was an absolutely amazing show, and everyone seemed to like the cookies.  Actually, I was wondering if we should bring them with us, and Erik looked at me funny and said “If you don’t bring the chocolate cookies, we won’t be friends anymore”.  I think that sounds like a pretty strong recommendation for these cookies!

Thanks again to Megan for this week’s pick, and to Lorelai for organizing this wonderful group!  To see what everyone else thought of these cookies, check out the SMS blogroll.  I won’t be doing the recipe for next week, as I don’t own an ice cream maker, so next week’s post is a surprise!