As one of their Christmas gifts, I gave my nephews Matt and Mike cards promising to make them a baked treat and mail it to them sometime this spring:
(In this post from August, I wrote about mailing them chocolate chip cookies for their birthday and their return to college.)
I didn't want to make plain chocolate chip cookies again, so two Sundays ago, in making good on my promise, I made Oatmeal–Chocolate Chip–Dried Cherry Cookies. Years ago, before I met Tony, I regularly made a bar version of that cookie with traditional ingredients like gluten-containing all-purpose flour and butter. (The link above goes to my personal blog, which is private. Email me if you'd like the log-in and password.) I based these gluten- and dairy-free cookies on the Oatmeal Cookies recipe in BabyCakes Covers the Classics, a baking book I referenced in that previous post about making cookies for the 'phews and the book on the cooking and baking shelves of my bookcase that gets the most use.
The cookies turned out wonderfully ...
... but I see room for improvements the next time I make them.
The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon, which sounded like an awful lot. I wanted only a hint of cinnamon flavor, and I decided I wanted some ginger too, so I used 2 heaping teaspoons of each ground spice in a double batch of cookies. And I think that was about right. Here's a photo of the dry ingredients whisked together:
As you can see, there aren't a lot of oats visible; the recipe specified 1/2 cup of oats for every 1 3/4 cups of gluten-free flour and 1 cup of sugar. I will add more oats the next time.
And I believe the book's recipe could easily handle another 1/2 cup of oats without getting too dry. Here's a photo of the batter with the dried cherries and chocolate chips waiting to be stirred in:
For liquids, Erin McKenna listed 1 cup of melted refined coconut oil or canola oil and 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce (and 2 tablespoons vanilla extract). As you can see in the photo, the oil is puddling a bit, especially around the edges. In my double batch, I used just under 1 cup of melted coconut oil (I melted what I thought would be about 1 cup by eyeballing what seemed like the right amount of the solid stuff) and used canola oil to top off that cup plus fill one more cup. The other ingredients in the batter couldn't absorb that much oil, and, consequently, the batter was unpleasant to work with and most of the cookies spread out more than I would have liked. Next time, I will cut back on the oil a bit, and I think with the additional oats, the batter should have a texture more to my liking.
Here's a photo of a later tray of cookies that, for whatever reason, didn't spread out as much as some of the earlier ones and didn't get as lacy around the edges:
The texture of the cookies overall was a little more oily-moist than I would have preferred but certainly not off-puttingly so. And the taste was spot-on. The combination of hearty oats, bittersweet dark chocolate chips, sweet-tart dried cherries, and the notes of ginger and cinnamon was a winner.