Chocolate sour cherry cookies

My oldest friend came to visit last weekend. We've known each other since we were babies, both of us brought up by mothers who were not only good cooks but instilled in us the idea of food as something to be shared - something to welcome, something to celebrate, to comfort, to say thank you. To this end, I made a batch of my favourite cookies for her arrival and she turned up with a tin of her own. Hers were delicious but I don't have the recipe for those (yet!) so here's what I made - the Bourke St Bakery's chocolate sour cherry cookies.

Sour cherries are a little hard to find (if you live in Brisbane, I got mine at the amazing The Source Bulk Foods store in West End on a recent visit) and when you do, they're expensive, but you could easily substitute a good quality dried cranberry as the two are quite similar in texture and taste. Chewy and rich and studded with plump pockets of fruit, these are my regular indulgence if I'm passing the original Surry Hills bakery in Bourke St. But really, you can't beat homemade. We took our cookie smorgasbord to the park with the papers and ate them in the warm winter sun. They spoke volumes.



Chocolate sour cherry cookies
Adapted from the Bourke St Bakery Cookbook

The size of cookie specified in the recipe below is more bakery than home-scale. I halved the recipe and rolled the cookies into walnut-sized balls and baked for about 10-12 minutes each. This yields about 16.
 

235g dark chocolate, chopped
150g flour
40g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp bicarb (baking) soda
1/2 tsp salt
100g unsalted butter
240g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
85g dried sour cherries


Preheat oven to 165 deg C / 320 deg F.

Put chocolate in a large stainless steel bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Allow water in saucepan to boil for two minutes, then turn off the heat and stir the chocolate til it melts.

Sift flour, cocoa, bicarb soda and salt into a bowl.

Cream butter and sugar til pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure each is incorporated before adding more. Add dry ingredients in three batches, mixing well after each addition, then add the melted chocolate and mix til well combined.

Fold through the dried sour cherries. The mix at this stage may be quite sticky, so you may need to refrigerate it for 15 minutes before shaping the cookies. Take three tablespoons of mixture at a time and roll into even-sized balls - you should make about 12 balls in total. Place balls on baking trays lined with baking paper, allowing room for them to spread. Refrigerate for a further 30 minutes, or until firm. Bake in batches, for 15-20 minutes each, or until risen and quite cracked on top. Cool on the trays and eat!