Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

These chocolate cherry oatmeal cookies are crispy and chewy, and filled with soft milk chocolate chips and dried sour cherries.

These cookies have the texture of a chewy oatmeal cookie but with all of the goodness of chocolate covered cherries! 

Every bite of these chocolate oatmeal cookies contains a delicious surprise. You might get a chewy dried cherry or amazing melty milk chocolate chips. Or, if you're lucky, both! 

This is the oatmeal cookie for the chocolate-obsessed. Plus, they are BIG! You'll definitely need to leave plenty of room between the shaped dough when you bake them. 

This recipe makes about 23 cookies.  You'll need to bake them with only six or seven on each baking sheet. My oven seems to work best when I only bake one sheet at a time, so I scooped dough and baked four sheet pans worth of cookies just to make sure all of the dough didn't run together to make one giant cookie. There is no need to switch out the parchment paper as it's totally reusable. 

Of course you can bake two sheets at a time if you know your oven well and rotate and switch up the baking sheets. 

 

Tip for cooling baking sheets between cookie batches:

If you decide to go with my "one sheet pan at a time" plan, and you don't have a ton of sheet pans, you can use this tip for cooling your sheet pans between bakes. 

I usually let the pan cool a bit on a wire rack, and then, to get it back to room temperature, I set it right on my granite counter. This step will cool the sheet pan so quickly. 

If you don't have a granite work surface, you could use a metal griddle or anything that can withstand and absorb the heat... even upside down skillets. 

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie recipe variations:

While I love the milk chocolate chips in these cookies, you can use any combination of chips or chunks, including white chocolate or bittersweet chocolate. 

Instead of the dried cherries, you definitely can substitute other dried fruits. While raisins are an obvious answer, dried mangos, apricots, dates, or cranberries would be delicious too. One of my most favorite dried fruit is dried blueberries. I've used them in oatmeal cookies, muffins, and granola bars. 

For the dried cherries in these cookies, I used sour cherries, but any dried cherries will work just fine. I've recently become of fan of sour cherries since I make sour cherry muffins, so when I saw the dried version in the grocery store, I had to buy them. 

This month, the Baking Bloggers are baking with oats. Be sure to check out everyone's recipes. 

Baking Bloggers

Baking with Oats or Oat Flour

• Baked Oatmeal with Rhubarb by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Buttermilk Oat Flour Pancakes by The Redhead Baker
• Cherry Rhubarb Crisp by Palatable Pastime
• Chewy Oatmeal Cookies by Making Miracles
• Fresh Cherry and Nectarine Crisp With Oat Streusel by Magical Ingredients
• Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake - Hjónabandssæla by Food Lust People Love
• White Chocolate Chunk Oats Cookies by Sneha’s Recipe

Tools to make these cookies: 

First, you will need baking sheets. My favorites are from Nordic Ware. 

My other favorite tool is a #16 cookie scoop. It produces a perfectly rounded 1/4 cup scoop of dough. 

This recipe was adapted from Big Fat Cookies, published in 2004 by Elinor Klivans. It's a wonderful book with lots of delicious huge cookies! 

Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

Yield: 23 cookies

Author: Karen's Kitchen Stories

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 22 MinTotal time: 37 Min

These chocolate cherry oatmeal cookies are crispy and chewy, and filled with soft milk chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Ingredients

• 7 3/4 ounces (1 3/4 cups) all purpose flour, preferably unbleached
• 1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 1/2 cups rolled (old fashioned) oats
• 5 ounces (1 cup) dried cherries
• 11.5 ounces (2 cups) milk chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Heat your oven to 325 degrees F with a rack in the middle position. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. 
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoal powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. 
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars for about a minute. Add the eggs, vanilla, and almond extract, and mix for about a minute. 
4. Add the flour mixture and oats and mix on low speed until the flour is just incorporated. Add the cherries and chocolate chips and mix briefly until just blended. 
5. Use an ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measuring cup, portion the dough into mounds and place them 2 1/2 inches apart on the parchment lined baking sheets. 
6. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for 22 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet or 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Nutrition Facts

Calories

309.99

Fat (grams)

13.42

Sat. Fat (grams)

7.86

Carbs (grams)

43.82

Fiber (grams)

1.99

Net carbs

41.83

Sugar (grams)

27.99

Protein (grams)

4.12

Sodium (milligrams)

144.22

Cholesterol (grams)

40.65

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2021/06/chocolate-cherry-oatmeal-cookies.html

Karen's Kitchen Stories

cookies, dessert

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