January 21, 2024
Black Forest Cookies!
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Gooey and delicious black forest cookies stuffed with chocolate chips, and cherries, in a delicious chocolate based cookie dough.
Honestly, these cookies are just something else. They are probably one of my favourite things that I have ever made, and I just can’t stop making them.
They were so highly requested that I hope you love them too. Even just the other day I did a recipe request post on my instagram, and SO many said Black Forest cookies so HERE YOU GO!
Black forest
Generally, the Black Forest flavour comes from a Black Forest gateau that consists of a few levels of a light chocolate sponge cake, sandwiched with whipped cream and cherries. A lot of the time there is a kick of booze as well, or even chocolate shavings.
I adore the flavour of anything black forest these days, after having the best Black Forest gateau ever in Switzerland many many years ago, and I just love it. Sometimes, I refer it to quite a festive flavour, but black forest is lovely all year around for me.
My Black Forest loaf cake is one of my favourites, along with my Black Forest ice cream… but these cookies?! They’re on a whole new level of delicious.
Cookie Dough
So as always, the cookie dough is similar to my other cookies, and is just the perfect base for this recipe.
- Butter – I either use a cold baking spread out of the fridge, or a block butter
- Sugar – I used a mixture of light brown soft sugar and white granulated sugar. You can use all of one, or the other though.
- Egg – I tend to use medium eggs in my bakes, but you can use one large egg instead of in this cookie recipe
- Vanilla – Optional, but adds a delicious flavour.
- Flour – Always use plain flour in your cookies, especially these!!
- Raising agents – For these, I use bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, but only a little bit
- Salt – I always add sea salt to my cookies because it’s delicious, but you can definitely leave it out, or use salted butter
Chocolate
So for me, the main part of this recipe really (and I guess Black Forest in general) is getting the chocolate right. I often believe it should always be a dark chocolate flavour, so I used dark chocolate chips in these cookies.
However, as these are just cookies, you can just use whatever chocolate chips you like, such as milk, white or even a mixture. However, really to be Black Forest you do need to stick to the chocolate based cookie dough for the best results.
Cherries
It may sound weird, but roll with me here, I used fresh cherries for these cookies. It sort of goes against the idea of most cookies where I often say don’t add a wetter ingredient (fresh fruit being one of those), but it does just work.
The cherries do create a wetter and stickier cookie dough, but it does still work, I promise. I use a large cookie scoop to help dollop my cookies onto my tray, and I do not roll these in my hands as it will be too sticky.
Using the correct ingredients for the cookie dough itself is so important as well as the cookie dough should be quite dry, and then you mix the cherries in as little as possible, and you get the best cookies ever.
Baking the Cookies
So when it comes to the cookies, I make my cookie dough using my stand mixer. I find it easy, but also it’s because I’m lazy. I use a Flexi edge beater or the beater attachment, I definitely do not use the whisk as all the ingredients would get stuck. If you’re going to make the dough by hand, just add the dry ingredients in sections so you can mix it in easier.
Once the main cookie dough is mixed together, I pour in the chocolate chips and chopped and pitted cherries and mix in briefly. Like mentioned above, this makes the dough slightly stickier than normal, but then I use a cookie scoop to dollop the dough onto the lined trays.
I only put four-five cookies per LARGE tray, so that they have room to spread. I then chill the cookies slightly to help prevent them spreading whilst baking. These cookies are decent in size, the batch makes ten – so thats ten delicious cookies to eat yourself, or share amongst your family and friends.
Tips & Tricks
- I use this cookie scoop to portion my cookies
- I use fresh cherries for these, but dried cherries work really well if you’re worried about the fresh ones or can’t find them.
- These cookies last for 4-5+ days once baked
- These cookies freeze well for 3+ months, raw or baked. If baking from raw, add 1-2 minutes baking time
- You can make the cookies smaller (bake time is about 9 minutes)
- I use a rich cocoa powder and I love it
- This is the dark chocolate I use
Black Forest Cookies
Ingredients
- 175 g unsalted butter
- 150 g light brown sugar
- 100 g white granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 250 g plain flour
- 35 g cocoa powder
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 0.5 tsp sea salt
- 200 g dark chocolate chips
- 150 g cherries (pitted and halved)
Instructions
- Add the unsalted butter and sugars to a bowl and beat until creamy.
- Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat again.
- Add in the plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and salt and beat until a cookie dough is formed.
- Add in the dark chocolate chips, and chopped up cherries and fold together
- Scoop the cookies onto two large lined trays, using tablespoons. I make 10 cookies all together.
- Place the cookie dough in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, or in the fridge for an hour or so!
- Whilst the cookie dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 200ºc/180ºfan
- Take the cookies out of the freezer/fridge and bake the cookies in the oven for 11-12 minutes.
- Once baked, leave them to cool on the tray for at least 30 minutes, as they will continue to bake whilst cooling!
Notes
- I use this cookie scoop to portion my cookies
- I use fresh cherries for these, but dried cherries work really well if you're worried about the fresh ones or can't find them.
- These cookies last for 4-5+ days once baked
- These cookies freeze well for 3+ months, raw or baked. If baking from raw, add 1-2 minutes baking time
- You can make the cookies smaller (bake time is about 9 minutes)
- I use a rich cocoa powder and I love it
- This is the dark chocolate I use
ENJOY!
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Hi Jane my boys don’t like cherries can I use dried cranberries?
Mashed with the cherry bakewell recipe (mum doesn’t like white chocolate) and oh my gosh these are lush!!!
Honestly your nyc cookie recipes are what got me back into loving baking ❤️
A classic combonation. Sadly the fresh cherries have made the cookies very soggy around the fruit and they fall apart. I’ll use glacé next time. But delicious non the less.
Try increasing your oven temp by 10-20ºc to prevent the cookies falling apart. As mentioned on the post the cherries do make the dough softer, but they are meant to!
Made these today they were absolutely amazing, I did swap the fresh cherries for half opies in kirsch and half glacé cherries as i already had them in and worked fine , i also made them smaller each one weighing 67g as i prefer that size ,thanks Jane for another brilliant recipe, this is my first time making cookies and it certainly won’t be my last
Hi Jane, is it soft butter you use in all your cookie recipes? Thanks