Recipes & Tips Blog

Today is cookie day for the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. Chockablock Cookies clean out the pantry with an ingredient list including chocolate, oats, molasses, nuts, dried fruit, and coconut.

With this full-on ingredient party I figured there would be room for a little added spice too. Fennel jumped to mind. Fennel with chocolate? Yes. Fennel with Cherries? Yes, Fennel with coconut? Yes. Fennel with almonds? Yes. Fennel with molasses? Seems reasonable. Fennel it is. I left the fennel seeds whole so the burst of flavor would be random and intermittent just like the nuts, fruit and chocolate.

After eating a number of cookies, it finally it hit me; the chocolate and molasses were competing with each other and overwhelming all of the other ingredients. I was really taken with the cherry, chocolate, almond, fennel idea, and decided a milder dough was needed to allow the flavor of each ingredient to really stand out; back to the mixer for a molasses-free variation.

I was very pleased with the results. I added a little orange zest to complement the fennel, reduced the amount of chocolate, skipped the coconut, and increased the oven temperature to 350 degrees. I intended to add a ½ teaspoon vanilla as well, but forgot. It would be worth adding next time out of curiosity. The finishing touch was a sprinkle of flake salt before baking, which really brought out the flavor of the nuts, fruit, and chocolate.

Chocolate Cherry Almond Fennel Cookies

Inspired by Dorie Greenspan’s Chockablock Cookies. These measurements are based on a half-batch of the original recipe. Makes 24 cookies.

1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp. sugar
½ teaspoon orange zest
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup all purpose flour
generous ¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons honey
1 egg
¾ cup rolled oats
½ cup almonds, toasted and rough chopped
½ cup dried cherries, rough chopped
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, rough chopped
1 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
flake salt or sea salt for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the sugar and orange zest in a small bowl and rub the zest into the sugar to evenly distribute it, set aside. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and then add the sugar/zest mixture. Beat for 2 minutes and add the honey. Once incorporated, add the egg and beat for an additional minute.

With the mixer on low, add the oats. Then add the dry ingredients and mix until just beginning to be incorporated into the dough. By hand, stir in the nuts, chocolate, cherries, and fennel seeds.

Place large tablespoon scoops on a parchment lined baking sheet. Lightly sprinkle each dough ball with a touch of flake salt. Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until the edges and tops of the cookies are lightly golden brown, but the centers still look a little wet. Let the cookies rest on the hot baking pan for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.

Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet picked this week’s recipe and has Dorie’s original version posted on her blog. Now I know that chocolate and molasses isn’t a flavor combination that works for me and Mary’s pick inspired me to come up with a variation that I love. Thanks for the inspiration Mary and Dorie!

*update – after reading other TWD blog posts I was reminded of the Chocolate Gingerbread we made last year and what do you know, I loved that flavor combo. So, it’s not a given that the chocolate-molasses combo doesn’t work, it just didn’t work for me in this situation.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. 123 recipes completed 98 to go!