Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies with Almonds

I know I’ve been gone a while, but this recipe should prove adequate peace offering. These tasty treat depicted here not be photogenic, but don’t let that dissuade you. I make a lot of cookies, and I flatter myself that most of them are quite tasty. These, however, are in another category of tasty altogether. I think they might be my favorite drop cookie ever. Yes, ever. This is not a claim I would make lightly.

The name here is plenty descriptive. These cookies have cocoa powder and chocolate chips, ergo double chocolate. They also have dried sour cherries and toasted almonds because cherries and almonds are like chocolate and peanut butter: they always work together. The recipe also calls for half a cup of red wine, which is a new one to me in a drop cookie.

The first time I tried to make this, I added an extra egg because I was sure – sure! – that the wine in the batter would evaporate and leave me with a crumbly, dry mess. There’s only a stick of butter and one egg, yet the amount of cocoa powder and flour is equal to that of your average (two stick, two egg) chocolate chip cookie recipe. I was wrong. The cookies were great, but they were only great because I tipped in extra flour and cocoa powder once it became clear that the extra egg had given me an extremely soupy batter rather than a semi-stiff dough. There’s a moral here: trust everything you read on the internet. Everything.

Holidays

I've been quite busy lately -- this year's holidays were of the "go forth and travel" rather than "stay home and bake" variety.  In lieu of recipes or poetry, I give you ... holiday pictures.  The first few were taken by Richard, my Aunt Wanda's significant other, and show my family in Avon Park, Florida.  After spending a few days with them, husband and I went down to Key West, up to the Everglades, and over to Tampa/St. Petersburg for a bit before returning to the frigid wasteland that is Connecticut in winter.

These will be primarily of interest to family, but I suspect that 90% of my current readers fall in that category given my absences!  I'll try to bake something next weekend.

In any case, the holiday pictures are here.

Happy New Year to all!