Recipe #1 - Double Chocolate Bing Cherry Cookies

If you saw my last post, my goal was to go through my 1st edition 1000 page book from the Culinary Institute of America for baking and pastry. Well here goes.....

My first recipe from the book.... Page number 326.

Double chocolate Bing Cherry Cookies.....

Yes, I saw you do a double take and rightfully so. They are absolutely delectable.
So the book is massive and therefore quite intimidating. I didn't know where to start. I was trembling with excitement to go through what is my first cookbook purchase. I figured that since I've been doing cookies for the past month and a half, I'd continue that trend.

The first recipe in Chapter 10, aptly labeled "Cookies," is a recipe for Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

Now that sounded appetizing in itself, but they had a little variation at the bottom of the page - Chocolate cherry chunk cookies - that sounded even better. They use semi-sweet chocolate chips and cherries, a good combination.

But, you know what. I like to bend the rules and go out of my comfort zone.  A classic combination is white chocolate and cherries.

How about a compromise? I decided to use half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half white chocolate chips along with dried Bing cherries. Yes, not the regular dried cherries, but the amazing Bing counterpart. I mean, if one is going to make amazing cookies, one has to use amazing ingredients, right?

I also cut the sugar by half from the original recipe and it was just sweet enough.

Here's the recipe in all it's glory.

Double Chocolate Bing Cherry Cookies
Adapted from "Baking and Pastry - Mastering the Art and Craft - The Culinary Institute of America" 
Yield: 2 dozen cookies
327 g all purpose flour
7.1 g salt
4.7 g baking soda
2 sticks of butter (1/2 lb)
104 g of dark brown sugar
2 eggs
dash of vanilla extract
160 g semi-sweet chocolate chips
160 g white chocolate chips
20 g chopped dried Bing cherries (Trader Joe's has them or regular dried cherries will work just fine!)

You might need to consult a conversion system because all the measurements in the book are very precise and I used a digital scale. Here is a good place to find one.

1. Heat oven to 375F and line baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper
2. Cream butter and sugar in electric mixer.
3. Add eggs and vanilla and mix, using a spatula to make sure things don't stick on the sides.
4. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt together and add it along with the chocolate chips and cherries to the wet ingredients till a thick batter is formed.

5. You can either roll it into a log and put in the fridge to solidify or you can just do the lazy method and dollop spoons of batter on the sheet.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Eat and be merry!

Bonus points to me - why? - I substituted the regular butter with margarine sticks - making it a little closer to vegan. And it still worked.

Enjoy,
Kartik