Chocolate, cherries, cashews, coconut. Yum.
I’ve been tweaking my chocolate chip cookie recipe for a while, trying to achieve the ultimate combination of texture (crispy outside, soft, chewy inside), sweetness (enough to satisfy the sweet craving, but not so much that you actually taste the sugar) and a good balance of flavors for all of the stuff that I can cram into a cookie. In this batch I eliminated granulated sugar altogether and repaced it with brown sugar; I also dialed back on the amount of chocolate so that the cherries & nuts would have a chance to shine. The result was pretty close to perfect: crispy on the outside, soft and perfectly chewy on the inside, just the right balance between chocolate, dried cherry & cashew, and the coconut gave it just a hint of the exotic. The cookies did get a little bit too soft over time, in this humid weather we’ve been having; next time I may swap out 1/4 cup of the brown sugar for a 1/4 cup of granulated and see if that gets me back a little structure and shelf-life. But as for the flavor? Too good to resist. In fact, I should have tucked some away in the freezer because Tai & I could not stop eating these and went through the entire batch in two days. Consider yourself duly warned!
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Quadruple C Cookies
INGREDIENTS
- 6 oz (about 1 and 1/4 cups) whole white wheat flour (Wild Hive all-purpose)
- 6 oz (about 1 and 1/4 cups) whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup (8 oz) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 and 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 4 oz baking chocolate, chopped into chunks, or chocolate chips
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 1/2 cup dried tart cherries
- 1/2 cup coconut flakes
METHODS
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Whisk together flours, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.
- Beat butter, brown sugar, and vanilla at high speed until very creamy (about 5 minutes). Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture until well mixed. Add chocolate, cherries, cashews and coconut and mix well with a spatula or wooden spoon.
- Drop by rounded teaspoonful onto ungreased baking sheets (I usually get 12 cookies per sheet). Bake in the preheated oven for 9-12 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp on the underside. Remove from oven, cool in the pan for 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Yields about 48 cookies (4 sheets of 12).
OPTIONS
- These are not overly sweet; if you have a sweet tooth, feel free to add up to 1/2 cup of granulated sugar.
- I like a lot of real estate with my chocolate chip cookies; less dough, more stuff. If you are more of a cookie perfectionist, you may want to cut down on the amount of chocolate , cherries or nuts you add.
- Obviously, you can replace the nuts and dried with your preference (or the contents of your larder).
STORE
In an airtight container at room temperature. These do tend to soften and get crumbly on Day 2; if the weather is humid, you may want to store in the fridge. Cookies also freeze well for up to 3 months. Re-heat in a preheated 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.
SEASON
Year-round.
localkitchenblog.com 
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen whole wheat pastry flour… can you sub with double the regular ww flour?
Hi Nancy,
They do sell WW pastry flour at most whole foods markets; sometimes you need to ask as I’ve found it stored in weird places in the store. But, yes, you could sub with regular WW flour; The pastry flour adds a little softness to the dough and makes it behave a bit more like regular white flour (although taste so much better). it would be best to use white whole wheat, which is a softer grain; ‘bread’ flour, or hard red wheat, will make a really dense and perhaps too-dry cookie.