Oatmeal, chocolate chip & sour cherry cookies

I still have a large amount of rolled oats sitting in my cabinet left over from the fudge oatmeal bar recipe.

I like them, I really do, but whenever I buy them they end up shoved into the back of the cupboard, forgotten and abandoned after my initial enthusiasm. I didn't want that to happen this time. I didn't want to be that girl again. You know, the fickle one, the kind you meet at a party and you have a really fun time with, who makes you feel special by laughing at your jokes and hanging out with you for a while. The kind who really means it when they say "I'll call you" and then gets distracted by a newer, more interesting arrival. I betrayed my oat friends many a time. I fell for their simplicity and versatility, got all exicted about all the things we could create together: cookies, crumbles, hearty soups...why, even meatloaf! Only to forget about them when my eye caught something a little more exciting like a warmly scented, unknown spice from a far away country or a new glossy vegetable showing up at the market.

This time I am keeping my promise. I will not forsake you, my friends.

To prove my good intentions I baked some cookies over the week end. Oats, check. Butter, check. Flour, check. Eggs, check. Raisins? Nope, F is not one for raisins and I always need that hint of chocolate to feel like I am having a treat. In went semi-sweet chocolate chips. That is when my eye caught that pack of dried sour cherries I bought on our last trip to Germany ( I am happy to say I recently finally found them here too !), another thing I got very excited about and still hadn't found a way to use. I had mentally married them off to a gamey roast with potatoes and gravy. But cookies would do just fine, thank you. So sour cherries, check.

I adapted a recipe from The Joy of Cooking and baked away. The result was good: there was that interesting combination between dark chocolate and fruit that grosses you out a bit as a child and becomes more and more enticing as you get older (why is that?). They were light and tasty.

But, if truth be told, it was not quite what I was expecting. I wanted that chewiness, that texture, that saltiness that only oatmeal cookies will give you. I wanted the chocolate chips to be the stars, but they got a little lost and overshadowed by the fewer tart cherries. Should I have used more butter? Should I have baked them a little less? Did I make a mistake when halving the ingredients?* Were these cookies supposed to taste healthy and a little cakey? Maybe. They were good, don't get me wrong, but not sinful and when I indulge in sweets and desserts I want to go all the way.

Ingredients (makes 48 3-inch cookies, I halved the recipe)

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

a pinch cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

1/4 cup of sugar

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

3 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup dried sour cherries

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line or grease two cookie sheets. Mix the first group of ingredients in a bowl, then mix the second group of ingredients in a separate, larger bowl until well blended. Stir in the flour mixture. Finally stir in the chocolate chips, the oats and the cherries. Shape the dough into generous 1 1/2 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on the baking trays. Flatten into 1/2 inch thick rounds. Bake one trat at a time until lightly browned (12-14 minutes). Cool on rack.



There are the two eggs!



* While downloading the pictures I discovered my mistake...I used the 2 eggs of the full recipe instead of halving the amount to one. I knew this was a fool proof recipe!! Bake these and enjoy, I am sure they will turn out perfect.