I make - Our favorite chocolate chip and cherry cookies

Having baking cookies for a few weeks. The recipe below is our current favorite and is adapted from the famous Flour Bakery Chunky Lola Cookies.

Our favorite chocolate chip and cherry cookies

- 150 g butter
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt flakes
- 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
- 1 1/4 cup plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2/3 cup cooking oats, flash ground
- 1/2 cup desiccated shredded coconut , flash ground
- 1/2 cup ground almond
- 1 cup toasted pecans or walnuts, roughly chopped
- 150 g dark chocolate, in small chunks
- 1/2 cup dried sour cherries (or replace with 50 g dark chocolate)

Make brown butter (beurre noisette) with 100 g of the required butter. Remove the pan from the stove and stir in the remaining 50 g of the butter. Set aside and let cool to at least blood warm.

If you have a stick blender, blend the oats for 10 seconds and tip it out to a small bowl. Repeat the same process with the shredded coconut. I found the unblended oat + coconut (as specified in the original recipe) yielded a rather coarse texture which we did't like.

In a mixing bowl beat together sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt until well combined. Drizzle in the cooled brown butter with the mixing action on.

Sift in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and coffee powder if using. Then add in oat, coconut, ground almond and toasted nuts. Use a rubber spatula to combine everything together. When the dough is about to come together (after 5 or 6 scrape and fold), stir in chopped chocolate and sour cherries. Scrape and fold for a few more times. Cover the bowl with a cling film and rest in the fridge for at least one hour.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Portion the dough into balls of golf ball size. I get 21 golf balls out of this recipe. Flatten each cookie dough slightly on a baking sheet and bake them at 180C for 15 minutes. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes before removing them to the cooling rack.

With this recipe, I bake six each time and wrap individual cookie dough with cling film, put them in a ziplock bag to freeze. Every time I feel like some cookies, I take out a few and bake. Everything is better with a piece of freshly baked cookie, don't you think?