Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the Southern husband and I were just the two of us. The teenager was just a twinkle in our eyes, and we were footloose and fancy free. Not that we don’t love and adore her, not that we would trade one single second of our charmed life together. Except maybe for the part that involved listening to Barney the Purple Dinosaur sing the I Love You song about 14 million times. But nothing else.
However, parenthood did put an end to our days traipsing through various and sundry bed and breakfasts, and we did spend a lot of happy weekends in a lot of those. And if you put us in separate rooms and asked us each which was our favorite, I know for a fact that we would both say the Blue Dory Inn on Block Island, Rhode Island. The Blue Dory is a little bit of heaven right in the center of the tiny town. Rocking chairs on the porch, antique furniture in the rooms, walking distance to the beautiful New England beach…and Blue Dory Cookies.
Every afternoon we would come back from wherever we had been that day and there would be a plate of these warm, wonderful cookies on the kitchen table. They are chocolate chunk cookies, but they are lighter and not as sweet, and totally addictive. Finally one day I asked the owner what the secret was, and she told me the only sweetener was maple syrup. Which you can’t really taste in the cookie, but it is the perfect ingredient. And then she wrote out the recipe on a piece of the inn stationary, and I have treasured it ever since.
Now, I know that piece of paper says chopped walnuts, and you are perfectly free to put those in if you like — I’m sure they would be lovely. But the Blue Dory cookies we had back in the day only had chocolate chunks, and so that is the only way I have ever made ’em.
So if you are looking for the perfect, peaceful, romantic bed and breakfast getaway, the Southern husband and I highly recommend the Blue Dory. And in the meantime, make their wonderful cookies for someone you love.
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Blue Dory Cookies
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yum.. gotta love a recipe that has 4 ingredients!!! thanks for sharing, they look delicious!
No kidding! I'd try almost any recipe with four whole ingredients, but especially cookies.
What a simple delicious recipe! I need to give this a whirl:)
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Oh my, they sure look delicious!
I'm going to have to try these! They look and sound amazing and I'm addicted to chocolate chip cookies!
Oh how I'd love to go back to Block Island next summer!! I just fell in love with this tiny island when I visited years ago…bet it hasn't changed all that much over the years!And these cookies look so easy to make…only 4 ingredients?!! How easy is that?!
These cookies look scrumptious! I am always looking for a new c.c.cookie recipe. 🙂
I want one!
Am making these tonight, and I realize a beautiful thing. There are no eggs in this recipe. No possibly salmonella-bearing eggs.
Raw cookie dough rides again! Let the spoon lickin' begin! (okay, so it already has in this kitchen. . .)
I am in love with these! I just made them and added hickory nuts to this recipe. It is a shortbread cookie for sure and the kind of cookie that makes you bend at the knees. Thank you!
Your blog is gorgeous.I love all your pictures, i am eating with my eyes first.Awsome!
Thank you!
Thank you!! I have been looking for this forever!! I also think the chocolate is semi-dark and she chops it up,..no preformed chips!
Oh my goodness!! These are SO fantastic!!!! I have been digging around blogs looking for cookie recipes to take to college with me…I wanted things that were unique.
These are SO unique. I'm making them at 7-8 in the morning, and there's a cool breeze wafting the smell around the house. It's driving my mom nuts!!!!!
Two questions:
What kind of chocolate chunks?
I assume this is legit maple syrup, and not Mrs. Butterworth's, right?
Anon: Any kind of chocolate chunks will do. I like Ghiradelli but Hershey or Nestle will do in a pinch. And I only use Vermont maple syrup from my hometown, but any pure kind will do. 🙂
You keep surprising me with your recipes, I will do this one for the weekend, my girlfriend loves pastry and sweats, I know she will enjoy this.
Should the butter be cold, room temp, or does it matter?
Hi Ernie – room temp will definitely make it easier to cream the butter. Happy baking!
i would like to cook this food, looks delicious.
hello, i think that this recipe is very good.
Wow! Its looking awesome…. Really its an interesting informative blog post here…. Keep posting such an amazing blog post.
i've had this bookmarked for a while but finally have a day off and i'm baking them now. just stole one from the first batch and they're absolutely delicious. I didn't add walnuts but i can see them being a definite plus for next time. STILL CANT BELIEVE that this only has 4 ingredients?!
You know when I saw these Kate I had to try them out because I’m a sucker for CC cookies, Never made cookies with just maple syrup so I thought I would give them a try kind of expensive to make if using premium chocolates & pure maple syrup. One word of caution to all who make these make sure you use a semi-sweet chocolate not bittersweet. I made the mistake of using bittersweet chocolate mixed in with some semisweet and they tasted bitter not sweet at all. I also used unsalted butter as force of habit if you do that make sure you add 1 teaspoon or more of salt otherwise they will taste bland most cookies have salt. I added a handful of chopped toasted pecans as I was raised with pecans in my chocolate chip cookies. Different tasting that what I’m accustomed too guess I’m tainted somewhat to my old ways. They were nice but not for me guess because I was raised on toll house cookies not using maple syrup thus prefer a different texture more sweeter and with a taste of vanilla & almond flavoring. Thanks Kate
I’m glad you gave them a try, anyway! They are definitely not as sweet as regular toll house cookies (I like that part, but that’s what makes the world go ’round 🙂 ) and you are definitely right about using semi-sweet chocolate and not bittersweet. Thanks for trying though!
Not as sweet, that’s for me. The best chocolate chip cookies I ever had were when a friend forgot the white sugar when she made hers. They were not only less sweet, but they had a richer flavor, IMO — I never use the white sugar anymore.
I’ll have to try these. The idea of syrup as the sweetener is very intriguing.
These are one of my favorite, favorite cookie recipes for that very reason. 🙂
Oh these look great. I never had maple syrup in a cookie, so this is on my list to make. Your brown sugar cookies look yummy too, and they can be served to my hubby as he can’t have chocolate.
Thanks Winnie! The Blue Dory cookies are some of my very, very favorites – it’s kind of crazy that such good cookies can come from so few ingredients!
Hi – Could you please let me know how many cookies this recipe makes? Thanks!!
It depends how big you make them, but I usually get around 30-35 out of this recipe – enjoy!
Great, thanks so much for getting back to me!
We stayed at the Blue Dory a lot of years ago! They served them in the afternoon & so good. Cleaning out a draw today & found Blue Dory Barnicals written on a slip of paper. When looking it up just now saw your recipe. I will have to try them. Thank you because it sure brought back great memories.
Isn’t the Blue Dory the best? And if we can’t actually live there, at least we can make their cookies! 🙂
Hi! I just made these after looking for a simple cookie recipe with self raising flour. This is such an easy yummy recipe. The biggest challenge was working out how to convert into grams since I’m English and cookies are not my specialty think I made the dollops a bit big as I now have huge cookies but that’s fine by me haha! Thanks 🙂
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with big Blue Dory Cookies! Glad you liked them, even with the math challenges! 🙂