Chockablock Cookies

It's really too bad you can't smell them!

Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet decided on Chockablock Cookies for her TWD selection. I really, really was not looking forward to this one even though I really enjoy reading Mary’s blog – I love the name of her blog. It brings up summer time memories. I’m of the old school – you’ve got your peanut butter in my chocolate so the thought of dried fruit in my chocolate – bleah! But I was on a TWD roll and I had to go with it. Plus I happen to love the taste of molasses!
Boy, when Dorie says ‘Chockablock’ she’s not kidding! This cookie dough not only contains molasses, but the mix-ins are pecans, dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries, and cherries in my case), coconut (another bleah), and bittersweet chocolate (A LOT of it! Yay!). I didn’t deviate from Dorie’s recipe (how unsurprising…) even though I wanted to omit the coconut and the dried fruit, I even stuck with the shortening. I thought the addition of the shortening would add some crunch to the cookie – HAH! Here’s a picture of the mix-ins, and it really does look like stuff got mixed in with the chocolate:

Hey, who's got their nuts, dried fruit, and coconut in my chocolate??

It took a bit of arm muscle to get all the mix-ins mixed in with the cookie dough – maybe I should join Mary on her Insanity quest seeing as how I’m pretty wimpy, wimpy, wimpy. I had to put the dough in the refrigerator so I could rest up before I had to make rounded tablespoons of the cookie dough. Here it is:

Just enough dough to keep the cookie together...

I forgot my cookie scoop at my home so I used rounded tablespoons which yielded twice the amount of cookies. Since I hadn’t tasted them yet, I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Turns out that it was a VERY GOOD THING indeed! It smelled wonderful while baking, I love, love, love the smell of the molasses baking in the oven! Even though I LOVE these cookies, it’s really hard for me to actually taste all of the individual ingredients other than the nuts, molasses, and chocolate. There’s 12 ounces of bittersweet chocolate which is a lot of chocolate (not that I’m complaining) but can you believe it – I wonder how it would taste with less chocolate? I must be woozy or something… what am I thinking??

Just out of the oven...

So big THANKS to Mary for making a selection that I normally would not have given a second glance nor would I have bothered to taste it should it have been offered to me, knowing what was in it! Be sure to visit her blog to check out her Chockablocks and visit the other TWD Bakers to check out their creations too. Definitely put buying the book on your to-do list today!

Last Week: Sweet Cream Biscuits
Next Week: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream (Yikes!)