White Chocolate-Macadamia Cookies with Dried Cherries and Coconut

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I made these cookies a while ago to use the macadamia nuts and dried cherries I got, two ingredients made for cookies. My mind went to the classic white chocolate-macadamia cookie, though my additions included the dried cherries and also coconut chunks. I saw the coconut at the store and it was probably the best purchase I've made in a while. The chunks have more of the raw coconut taste without being overly sweetened like the flakes you buy in the baking aisle.

My only problem was the base -- which recipe did I want to use as the platform? I wanted a chewier cookie with a lot of depth of flavor. I haven't yet tried the NYT chocolate chip cookie and I thought about trying that recipe, but then I remembered a chocolate chip cookie recipe from Sugar Plum that I hadn't yet tried. The recipe includes brown butter and softened butter, and I went ahead and added a teaspoon of instant yeast as per her previous recipes. The other reason I tried this was because I had recently made a cookie where I made sugared pecans to add to the dough, and Emily did the same here (which is what stood out to me about the recipe the first time I read it).

So you have awesomeness, and it's amped up, all in the same cookie! Things I've noted about this recipe:

It makes A TON of dough. When I cook these, I use a mere 2 tablespoons, but you still get a decently sized cookie. Added bonus, you have a crapton of dough left in the fridge to cook up fresh batches whenever you want a cookie.

Yesterday, I accidentally overcooked these cookies. I baked them for 16 minutes instead of 11. However, the cookies haven't really been baking well at just 11 minutes so I was always planning on increasing the cooking time, just not by 5 minutes. But even when thoroughly browned (not burnt) and looking like it'd come out crispy, the added toastiness really allowed the flavors to come through even more. To make things better, they still were a bit chewy. Good to know, because I never would have baked these that long and I never would have known what I was missing out on.

I sprinkle salt on my cookies. A few grains. I've played around with regular kosher salt, and bamboo jade sea salt. Whatever you use, use a coarse salt. You will not be disappointed.

That's all I have to say about that.

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baking, cookies