Blueberries and Chocolate

The finished product - Chocolate Chip Blueberry Cookies

About a year ago my sister, knowing my love of blueberries, picked up a bag of chocolate covered dried blueberries for me. How I had missed the combination up until that point is really beyond me. Blueberries + chocolate = a special kind of delicious.  But for some reason, the two are not really a 'classic' combination. They should be. So taking a cue from the 'bake brave' tagline of this year's World Baking Day - Saturday May 19th - and some inspiration from last year's gift, I thought I would jump on board the baking festivities with this unusual pairing in cookie form.  

Chocolate Chip and Blueberry Cookies (Gluten Free)

Ingredients:

• 200g gluten free all purpose flour (I used Dove's Farm)
• If you're on good terms with gluten, feel free to swap this for all purpose flour.
• 150g light brown sugar
• 125g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1 egg
• 1.5 tsp vanilla
• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 50g dried blueberries
• 100g finely chopped milk chocolate

What to do:

Preheat oven to 180C/360F. Combine the butter, egg, sugar, and vanilla in a mixing bowl - I used an electric handheld mixer on a low/medium speed for about a minute. Or you could work up an appetite by using a human-powered version.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and pinch of salt. Gradually add this to the wet mixture. Once this is accomplished, fold in the dried blueberries and chopped chocolate. Mix as evenly as possible to ensure proper chocolate/blueberry distribution in your final product! 

Resist the urge to eat as is.

I experimented with cookie sizes a bit here too. This batch size makes about 2 dozen larger cookies or around 40 small cookies, but could easily be doubled if so desired. Baking times vary from 8-10 minutes in a pre-heated oven depending on cookie size. 

Ready to go in the oven.

Freshly baked!

Let cool for about a minute, but not too long, before removing from the cookie sheet. These cookies turn out on the crispy, as opposed to chewy, side - but are nicely pliable when still warm (my favorite!).

I hope you enjoy this baking experiment as much as everyone here did. I made these yesterday, and there are shockingly few left today. What unusual combinations have you tried lately? I'd love to hear!