Plum Cherry Chocolate Chip Cakies – My Cookie Recipe Messterpiece

These Plum Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies came about when a cookie recipe turned from a masterpiece into a mess-terpiece called “cakies”

So, as I’ve recently gotten back into blogging, I wanted to create a recipe to share.  My current craving?  Cookies!! (always, of course)  

I had just gotten off work and was racing to the store before my phone died because, believe it or not, I don’t have a cookie recipe memorized.  I know there’s definitely… eggs, flour and sugar, and probably other things.  Definitely chocolate things!

Oh man, check out that chocolate!

So when I got to the store I had a chance to quickly google “cookie recipe” and find the basic ingredients before my phone died.  

Google said that to make cookies you would need: butter, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, eggs, flour, baking soda and salt.  I had everything except brown sugar, flour and baking soda so I picked those up (along with some chocolate chips!).

When I got home I suddenly realized that I did not in fact have all the ingredients I needed…This was the first sign that my ‘masterpiece‘ would become a “mess-terpiece“.

At this point I’m very determined to continue making this recipe, so I think “it won’t be that bad to just adapt the recipe, right?”.  

This is where I should say cooking is VERY different than baking.  Baking is scientific, and measuring things is important.  

Cooking is sort of like a wild art form, where whatever you want to do is probably OK.  I’m definitely more used to cooking than baking…

I didn’t have white sugar, or butter!  OH NO.  Well, I had some I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light Spread, so I substituted that for butter, and I used more brown sugar for white sugar.

To top it all off, I’m not even sure the vanilla extract I used was really vanilla extract.  It said Vanilla Bourbon Cookie Extract…So it’s either vanilla extract or bourbon?

Now that I’ve got all my makeshift ingredients, I’ll tell you my recipe.

(Also for those of you doing Weight Watchers, this recipe makes 9 cookies, each of the with a Smart points plus value of 7!!)

Ingredients for Plum Cherry Chocolate Chip Cakies (makes 9 large cakes)

• 8 tablespoons of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light Spread
• ¾ cup of lightly packed brown sugar 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla  (or bourbon?!?!)
• 1 egg
• 1½ cups  all purpose flour (plus about another ½-¾ cup flour…I’ll explain later)
• ½ teaspoon  baking soda 
• ¼ teaspoon salt  (but I always add a little extra)
• ¾ cup chocolate chips 
• ¼ cup plum-cherries* diced

*I realized I didn’t tell you about the plum-cherries!  I really like my cookies with chocolate and fruit in them, chocolate cherry cookies, chocolate blueberry cookies, etc etc.  Last time I went to the farmers market, I got this amazing fruit called a “Plum-Cherry”. 

It has the sweetness of a cherry, the tanginess of a plum and the size of something in-between!  If you don’t have plum-cherries you can use something else instead!

See the recipe card below for my directions to make these cakies.

Why I call them cakies

So they turned out not to be cookies, but instead a hybrid creation of cookies and cake, which I lovingly have titled “Cakies”!  

They are actually pretty delicious, but a tiny bit more dry than I would have liked.  I fixed that problem by dipping them in Greek yogurt.  You get the light fluffiness of the cakie, and the smooth texture of the yogurt!  It is the perfect fix to make my cookie mess-terpiece into a delightful cakies!!

From Masterpiece to Messterpiece

Let’s recap the struggles of these cakies:

• not having a cookie recipe
• not having sugar or butter
• not having a mixer
• not being sure if you actually added bourbon or vanilla extract
• probably using too much flour
• tripping over everything in sight
• not having enough counter space to store all the ingredients, so everything is a little weird
• making a huge mess
• not making crumbles, but instead making “cookie juice”

BUT, even with all the struggles, it turned out to be pretty good!  I have decided that dipping them in Greek yogurt is absolutely the way to go!  I had one for breakfast with some Greek yogurt and plum-cherries, and it was a nice little treat.  

It has the sweetness of a cookie, but the texture of a cake, or a scone.  Very interesting indeed!  I’m not sure I’d make these every week, but I’m glad that I discovered them.  

This was just a little reminder to me that not everything is going to turn out perfectly the way you imagined, but with a little luck and perseverance it can still turn out pretty well even if you end up inventing something new! I keep realizing I need to go easy on myself!

Hooray for Plum cherry chocolate chip cakies!!

Yield: 9

Plum Cherry Chocolate Chip Cakies

Print

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Total Time 22 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light Spread
• ¾ cup of lightly packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (or bourbon?!?!)
• 1 egg
• 1½ cups all purpose flour
• ½-¾ cup all purpose flour (additional)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup chocolate chips
• ¼ cup plum-cherries diced

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Microwave the butter to melt it (I did 40 seconds)
3. Mix the butter and sugar until creamy (at this point I should mention I don’t have a stand mixer, or any sort of mixer at all, so I grabbed the biggest whisk I could find in my kitchen and went to town!!)
4. Add the vanilla (bourbon?) and egg, mix it all together (10-15 seconds)
5. Put on apron because you realize you’re getting very dirty.
6. Combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and salt. Add those to the wet mix. Now this is the point in most cookie recipes where “crumbles form” after you start to mix it all together…Since I used light “butter” (my mum said light butter is a no-no in baking!), no crumbles are forming.
7. Keep mixing to try to form crumbles…THERE ARE STILL NO CRUMBLES IN SIGHT. It looks more like cookie…juice? Cookie juice?!?!?! (at this point I considered stopping and scrapping the whole thing, but then I moved on to the next step)
8. Add more flour (about another ½-¾ cup flour). Because more flour makes it less juice-like and more cookie like, of course!
9. Try some of the batter, because….well, you know you want to! (it doesn’t taste half bad!)
10. (this step is optional) Run into the other room to answer your phone, and trip over your bicycle which has been in the same spot for months, and has never before proved to be a tripping hazard…
11. Add the chocolate chips and plum-cherries (or your desired fruit)
12. Roll the mix into balls (as best as you can, I know the mix is still sort of weird), I used an ice cream scoop to help. Place them on a greased baking pan. I like big cookies so I made 9 of them.
13. Bake for 10-12 minutes then take them out of the oven and let them cool for about 30 minutes (well, uh, eat two or three, then let the rest cool).

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

9

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 361Total Fat: 11gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 21mgSodium: 225mgCarbohydrates: 59gFiber: 2gSugar: 28gProtein: 5g

Nutritional information is approximate due to natural variation in ingredients and the cook-at-home nature of our meals.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small commission from the sale, but the price is the same for you. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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