My mom has baked the same cookies every year during the holidays for as long as I can remember. Not only are they the best cookies I’ve ever had, but our Christmastime rituals wouldn’t be the same without them. It’s guaranteed that in the weeks leading up to the holiday, there will be a healthy supply of treats chilling in the garage, stored in tins and tupperwares. We all know which cookies live in each container, and it’s free-for-all cookie snacking. There are the chocolate chip log cookies, the peanut butter kiss cookies, the apricot turnover cookies and, of course, the forgotten cookies.

Forgotten cookies are probably the most basic of all the treats that my mom makes, but they have always been my favorite. They are usually the last cookie we make, since you literally leave them in the oven and “forget” about them for a while. The base is a simple meringue that my mom usually adds chocolate chips to. Then the meringue is spooned on to baking sheets in big globs, placed into a pre-heated oven which is then TURNED OFF, and forgotten about for a few hours until the meringue is crispy and dry.

Using this meringue recipe as a base, I decided to mix my cookies up this year with some dark chocolate chunks instead of chips and dried cherries in place of the walnuts. I loved how the dried cherries gave the cookies an additional bit of chew. Plus, you really can’t go wrong with the dark chocolate and cherry flavor combo, right? You still have plenty of time to whip up a batch of these before Santa shimmies down the chimney, so what are you waiting for? Get to it!