Mokonuts’ Rye-Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s fabulous new baking book, Baking with Dorie. I must admit that I am obsessed with these cookies, and have made them many, many times since purchasing her book. The combination of rye, cranberry, chocolate, and poppyseed was intriguing to me when I read the recipe, but the picture immediately sold me; the golden brown cookie with a slight indentation was so beautiful, and I jumped in the kitchen to start baking.

Dorie writes in the recipe headnote: “People come from around the world to eat Mokonuts, a small restaurant in Paris that is always full, and everyone wants the same thing for dessert: one of Moko Hirayama’s cookies. Moko makes only a few varieties, but they all share a similar chubbiness, great texture, an offbeat choice of flavor combinations and a signature indentation in the center that looks like Moko’s handprint but is actually made by tapping each cookie with a spatula.”

This rye cookie will be included in my holiday cookie baking this year, and I’ve been making a plain chocolate version that my kids are obsessed with. The rye flour lends a nutty complexity that balances the chocolate.

On the first day of baking this cookie has crisp edges, a gooey center, and incredible flavor. While it loses its crisp edges the following days, it still is incredible in its softened state, and is slowly becoming a dangerous addiction.

Baking with Rye Flour

Rye and wheat are two very different grains, so compared to all-purpose flour, rye flour will react differently (in a good way!) in baking.

It has a delicious nutty, malty flavor that brings out the best in ingredients like chocolate, ginger, caramel, brown butter, cinnamon.

Rye flour contains very little gluten, so it does need an additional flour to provide structure for baked goods, which is why you’ll see a good portion of all-purpose in this recipe, too.

More Cookie Recipes:

• Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies
• Vanilla Cheesecake Cookies

Cranberry-Rye Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Servings: 15 cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Refrigeration Time: 8 hours hours

Rye flour adds a delicious nutty flavor to these chocolate chunk cookies, paired with cranberries and poppy seeds. They have a chubbiness, great texture, and a signature indentation in the center that looks like a handprint, but is actually made by tapping each cookie with a spatula.

Sarah Kieffer

4.69 from 19 votes

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Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 1 ½ tablespoons [130 g] rye flour see note*
• ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons [85 g] all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 10 tablespoons [140 g] unsalted butter at room temperature
• ½ cup [100 g] granulated sugar
• ½ cup [100 g] packed light brown sugar
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 2/3 cup [80 g] moist, plump dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup [50 g] poppy seeds
• 4 oz [113 g] bittersweet chocolate chopped into small chunks
• Maldon or other flaky sea salt for sprinkling

Instructions

• Whisk together both flours, baking powder, and baking soda.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, both sugars, and the salt together on medium speed for 3 minutes, or until thoroughly blended; scrape the bowl as needed. Add the egg and beat for two minutes more.
• Turn off the mixer, add the dry ingredients and mix only until combined. Add the cranberries, poppy seeds, and chocolate and mix again until just combined. Scrape the bowl to bring the dough together. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Divide the dough into 15 pieces, roll each piece into a ball between your palms and place on the baking sheet. Cover the balls and refrigerate overnight.
• Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 425F [220C]. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Keeping the remaining balls of dough in the refrigerator until needed, arrange 8 cookies on the sheet, leaving 2 in [5 cm] between them. Sprinkle each cookie with a little flaky sea salt, crushing it between your fingers as you do.
• Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, then pull the baking sheet from the oven and, using a metal spatula, the bottom of a glass, or the back of a spoon, tap each cookie lightly but smartly – you want to deflate a bit of the cookie and leave an indentation. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 3 minutes, then carefully transfer them to a rack. Repeat with the remaining dough, using a cool baking sheet.
• The cookies are ready for munching after they’ve cooled for about 10 minutes, or you can wait until they reach room temperature. These are best eaten the day they are baked and really best shortly after they come from the oven. But they’re still way above average even 3 days later; keep them in an airtight container.

Notes

Note: Dorie recommends using a medium rye if you can find it. I could only find dark, and after trying several brands, find Great River 100% organic Dark Rye Flour to be my favorite in this recipe (not sponsored, I just loved how it tasted here the best).

*This recipe is from the cookbook, Baking with Dorie.