Easy Travel-Inspired Black Forest Cookies

These delicious chocolate-cherry Black Forest cookies taste like travel but feel like home. Anyone with wanderlust can whip them up in just a few minutes!
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Black Forest cookies, the pre-quel. They're pretty even before they're made!

I used to think travel bloggers were really dedicated to their craft... that was, until I stepped into the shoes of food and recipe bloggers for an afternoon.

What I thought would be a simple photography challenge of capturing some pretty cookies ended up as an exhausting, sweaty affair - and that was just the effort it took to scrub my kitchen to get it photo ready! For those of you who do this everyday, I tip my hat to you. It takes extraordinary effort and skill. Meanwhile, I think I'll stick to my day job of chatting about travel but there's no way I'm letting all those photos go to waste so I'm going to borrow one more page from my foodie friends and share the recipe and process here.

These travel-inspired Black Forest cookies have THREE kinds of chocolate in them, are filled with moist cherries, are super easy to make (at least, they are when you don't have to photograph them,) and they're perfect for festive occasions like Valentine's Day or Christmas. 

To be clear, I didn't invent these cookies. All credit goes to Beth at The First Year blog. Please check out her site to see her original notes and the gorgeous photos that originally inspired me.

These look cute but, trust me, just one bowl or two will do!

If you're not photographing these cookies, all you need is a bit of counter space, two cookie sheets (and parchment paper if your pans are not non-stick), a mixing bowl and your favourite wooden spoon or spatula, a small cutting board and knife, and standard measuring spoons and cups.

You'll also need your oven, pre-heated to 350. Here's your ingredient list!

•  1/4 cup softened butter (I left mine out on the counter overnight)
•  3/4 cup brown sugar
•  1 large egg
•  1 tsp vanilla extract
•  1 & 1/3 cup all purpose flour
•  1/4 cup cocoa powder
•  1/2 tsp baking soda
•  1/4 tsp salt (I accidentally used 1/2 tsp and everything turned out just fine)
•  1/2 cup drained & finely chopped maraschino cherries (plus extra for garnish)
•  3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 
• A square or two of dark chocolate, finely chopped to use as garnish on the cookies (This is where my version differs from Beth's - I had leftover dark chocolate and it worked brilliantly. For those curious, I used Lindt 70% dark chocolate bars, which you can find through this affiliate link.)
• If you're feeling fancy - some sparkly finishing sugar to sprinkle on the top.

A sifter and dry ingredient-bowl can help - but feel free to skip them.

Like most cookie recipes, this is a process of preparing wet and dry ingredients and then combining the two. Cream together your butter and sugar in a large bowl. Or cheat like I did and use electric beaters for a moment. Beat in your egg and vanilla and set aside. (Some of my pretty bowls came from Chapters/Indigo and, while they're not longer available, you can search for new patterns here via this affiliate partner link.)

Here's where my laziness might clash with dedicated home bakers and food bloggers. You SHOULD get a second bowl to combine all your dry ingredients. In fact, it doesn't hurt to sift them in, considering how cantankerous and clumpy cocoa powder can be. And I certainly did all that when I was photographing the recipe. But let's say that you only have so much space and time. Does it REALLY make that much of a difference to haul out another mixing bowl for your dry ingredients? Who can say!? If you want to pour your dry ingredients right on top of your wet ones, I'm not going to tell anyone. In fact, I'll suggest you start with the flour first and add the salt and baking soda last, so you can dreamily stir them into the flour with your finger before mixing the whole darn thing. 

Hands bare, don't care.

You do, however, need to put a bit of effort into chopping up the maraschino cherries. I think whole cherries or even half pieces would turn these moist cookies into something a little more soggy and it's well worth the time to do this part right. I set aside about two tablespoons' worth so I could press a few bright red pieces on the outside of the cookies but this is totally optional. 

The fantastic thing about these cookies is that they require no chilling at all and the dough does not spread as it cooks. However, as it's a thick dough, a bit of effort is required to mix everything. After a minute or so of stirring, I realized digging in with my hands was the most effective way to tackle the situation (don't look at me that way - you know you've done it too!)

Fresh from the oven!

The cookie dough easily rolled into small, uniform balls and I decorated each one with some leftover cherry bits, shards of chopped dark chocolate, and a sprinkle of shimmery finishing sugar.

The original recipe suggests a baking time of 13-15 minutes at 350 but I messed up and mine were only in the oven for about 12 minutes, tops. Thankfully, they turned out just fine!

As these are soft, moist cookies, handle with care and let them sit for a few minutes before moving them to cooling racks (or grabbing one to sample.)

What kind of person forgets to clean away the smeared chocolate from the cutting board? Me, that's who.

So just how Black Forest-y are these easy, travel-inspired Black Forest cookies? Well, considering how pretty they are, they are VERY travel-ish. This is exactly the kind of cookie I'd love to discover at a bakery when I'm out exploring. But fans of culinary history will be interested to learn that Black Forest cake and other desserts are not named after the Black Forest region of southwest Germany. At least, not in the way that you might think.

Instead, the name is thought to be an homage to the Black Forest's tart cherry liquor, Schwarzwälder Kirsch(wasser). As cherries and cherry alcohol play an important role in the original Black Forest cake recipe, this seems like a plausible theory to me. Another interpretation is that the cake takes its inspiration from the traditional costume of Black Forest women, who once wore Bollenhuts, large hats with big, cherry-red pom poms on top. 

Today, savvy bakers throughout Germany capitalize on the popularity of Black Forest cake and produce a number of chocolate-cherry desserts. So it's absolutely plausible that Black Forest cookies like these are produced in the heart of the Black Forest. But this is a case of food influencing a region and a region influencing the food, not an ancient recipe whose providence is beyond dispute. (Thanks, Wikipedia, for much of this information.)

If you feel like enjoying a cookie that looks as good as it tastes and reminds you of the simple travel pleasures of discovering something irresistible in a windows of a foreign bakery, this is the cookie for you. Bon Appétit!


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