Maraschino cherry chocolate chip cookies are a great mash-up of the fabulous cherry-chocolate combo and chocolate chip cookies. Bejewelled with maraschino cherries, while I’m posting these in May, they’re perfectly festive for Christmas too. I say make them right now because they’re so good.
- Browned butter for a nutty, buttery flavour.
- Simple mix and bake cookies – no chilling!
- Cherries and dark chocolate are amazing together.
- Thick, soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies.
- Great for gifting or just because.
This recipe is adapted from my much-loved marshmallow chocolate chip cookies that always disappear in a flash. They’re soft with crisp edges and have a slight caramel edge from the brown sugar. Plus they’re so easy with no stand mixer and no chilling required.
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Ingredients you’ll need
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Maraschino cherries: Stored in a sweet cherry syrup, maraschino cherries are sweet but tart all at once and a fluorescent red. The colour deepens slightly on baking to make it look like your cookies are dotted with rubies. You could use glace cherries or even dried cherries in a bind.
- Chocolate chips: I use dark chocolate chips (semi-sweet chocolate chips) in these cherry chocolate chip cookies. White chocolate chips pair nicely with cherries too so try some white chocolate cherry cookies.
- Unsalted butter
- Plain flour: aka all-purpose flour
- Baking soda: aka bicarbonate of soda. Different from baking powder.
- Salt: Just a little salt intensifies the flavours in desserts.
- Sugar: There is a combination of both white and brown sugars in these cookies.
- Egg: I use large free-range eggs.
- Vanilla extract: I love adding a vanilla edge to these cookies. You could swap the vanilla extract for 1 teaspoon almond extract.
How to make cherry chocolate chip cookies (step-by-step)
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Brown the butter: Start by browning the butter. Simply melt butter in a saucepan over low-medium heat then bring it to a bubble. Let it bubble away until it turns golden brown, then very gradually pour it into a heatproof mixing bowl. Let it cool a little.
- Dry ingredients: Whisk together the flour baking soda and salt to distribute evenly and set that aside.
- Wet ingredients: Whisk the sugars into the browned butter (photo 1), then a whisk in the egg and vanilla (photo 2).
- Combine it all: Add the dry ingredients and stir them in with a spatula (photo 3). When they’re 90% combined, add most of the cherries and chocolate chips and stir those in (photo 4).
- Shape and bake: Use a cookie scoop to scoop out balls of dough. I use one that’s about 3 tablespoons volume but you can use a slightly smaller one too. Set them on a tray a couple of inches apart (photo 5). Bake for 12-14 minutes depending on how cooked through your like your cookies.
Cookie texture is a matter of personal preference. If you want your maraschino cherry cookies just cooked through, stick to 12 minutes. I grew up with cookies, or as we call them – biscuits, being crunchy all the way through and technically that’s still my preference but I can’t deny how good a cookie with a soft centre is either! For a crunchier outside but still a soft inside, cook for 13-14 minutes.
Tips and tricks
These cherry chocolate chip cookies are seriously easy to make but here’s a few tips for perfection.
- Drain and dry the cherries: So that your cookies don’t come out with soggy bits make sure to fully drain the cherries first and then dry them between paper towel to remove any excess liquid.
- Chop the cherries: Make sure to chop the cherries in half at the very least so that you can also check to make sure there are no stones left in them. I found one when I was chopping and it could have hurt crunching down on that.
- Don’t throw away the cherry juice: Look it’s your call, maraschino are obviously sweet from sugar and have high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients list too – I know some are very opposed to this. But if you’re not, try adding some of that syrup to a glass of milk, as if you were making cordial. It’s so yum and it’s not like it’s part of your regular diet so a treat’s ok.
- Weigh the flour: It’s so important to weigh dry ingredients like flour or cocoa for instance. Different methods of measuring can result in very different amounts and a little too much or too little flour can completely change your cookie results.
- Bake a tester: I often suggest baking off 1 or 2 cookies first then let them cool for 10 minutes before baking the rest. From that tester you’ll know the result you get from your oven and your baking trays and know exactly how long you need to bake to get the texture you like.
Yield and storage
This cherry chocolate chip cookie recipe makes 13-14 cookies using a 3 tablespoon scoop. If you want more, use a 2 tablespoon scoop and you’ll get around 19 cookies – just remember to cut the baking time down to 9-10 minutes.
The cookies can be stored at room temperature for 3-4 days in an airtight container. You can also freeze these maraschino cherry cookies. Store them in an airtight container or ziplock bag in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Did you try this cherry chocolate chip cookies recipe?
Leaving a rating and comment below the recipe is so helpful!
Ingredients
- 1 cup maraschino cherries (140g/5oz drained)
- 113 g unsalted butter (1 stick / ½ cup / 4oz)
- 225 g plain flour (all purp flour) (1 ¾ cups / 8oz)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda (bicarb soda)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅔ cup white granulated sugar (135g / 4.8oz)
- ¼ cup light brown sugar (50g / 1.8oz)
- 1 large egg, room temp
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips (semi-sweet) (180g / 6.4oz)
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Equipment
- 2x baking sheet
- Large mixing bowl
- medium saucepan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C (160C fan forced) / 350F. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper.
- Drain the cherries and chop them into halves or quarters depending on their size. Place them on a couple of sheets of paper towel and press down gently on top with another sheet to remove excess juice.
- Place the butter in a small saucepan over low-medium heat. Heat swirling until the butter melts and starts to bubble. Let it bubble away, swirling every so often until the bubbles turn foamy and the butter is amber brown in colour.
- Slowly pour the browned butter into a large mixing bowl letting it dribble in so you can hold back any burnt solids. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- Add the sugars to the browned butter and whisk until well combined. Add the egg and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
- Add the flour mixture and use a folding and cutting motion with a spatula until just combined.
- When the flour is 90% mixed through, set aside 1 small handful of each of the chocolate chips and the chopped maraschino cherries and add the rest to the dough. Fold until combined.
- Use 3 tablespoon sized scoop, packing the cookie dough in, to scoop golf ball sized balls of dough and transfer to the baking trays. Space the cookies about 2 inches apart. Bits might fall off but just press them back in.
- Add a couple of chocolate chips and a cherry piece to the top of each. just lightly digging them in.
- Bake for around 12-14 minutes. As soon as you take the trays out of the oven, you can use a round cookie cutter and swirl it around the cookie to make them more round if you like.
- Allow them to cool on the trays for a few minutes before using a spatula to help to transfer them to a cooling rack. Once cool, they will firm up and be crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle
- Please take a moment to leave a comment & rating. It's appreciated and so helpful.
Notes
- I use the Tania brand, 340g jar of maraschino cherries and this yields about 1 cup or close enough to it.
- You can use a 2 tablespoon volume cookie scoop too – bake the cookies for only 9-10 minutes though.
- All ovens vary – check your cookies at 8 minutes – they should look dry and ‘set’ but will still be very soft.
For best results you should always weigh ingredients like flour and sugar. Kitchen scales are relatively cheap but if you can’t weigh the ingredients, use the spoon and level method (don’t scoop).
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5 Comments on “Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies”
So happy you love them Luke. Just keep in mind there are a lots of things that could cause your cookies to take longer than mine (the ones in the pics shown were 9 minutes). Make sure to dry off the cherries really well on paper towel so you aren’t adding extra moisture to the cookie dough. Also the exact amount of dough you use for each cookie, and I say it often, but all ovens vary and many don’t heat or circulate heat as they should. So happy you found the perfect time for your oven and your tastes 🙂
Tasty! My dough was a little bit too dry/crumbly so my cookies didn’t spread out very much, and even though I was 1/4 cup short on cherries the ratio of mix-ins to dough was a bit too high, resulting in some cookies splitting open when baking since there wasn’t quite enough dough to hold them together. Still delicious though!
So happy you love them. Did you weigh out your flour? This is not normally a crumbly dough.
My family and friends love these cookies! I have made them twice now and have gotten rave reviews and requests for the recipe. They held up great in Christmas cookie boxes and I loved the pop of color the cherries added.
So happy to hear this, Briana. They have such a vibrant pop of flavour from those cherries. Thanks so much for dropping back to review.