Recipes from the Twit Army Mess Hall - Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is just a modification of the classic, Ruth Wakefield (original owner of the Toll House where these cookies were supposed to have originated) recipe. Since I make them for bake sales, where some of the people may have nut allergies I've omitted the walnuts and added dried cherries instead.
Ideally the dough should be made the day before and allowed to rest in the refrigerator overnight but if you're in a rush you can skip that step.

Ingredients:

2 sticks of sweet, not salted butter, at room temperature
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c. brown sugar (your preference of light or dark) packed
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 1/4 c. UNSIFTED flour
1 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 tsp hot water
2 c. chocolate chips
2 c. dried fruits, I use dried cherries or sometimes I'll mix cherries and craisins (dried cranberries but you can use whatever you want. However if the fruit is sugar coated I'd rinse off the extra sugar.
Optional 2 c. broken walnut pieces instead of the fruit. If you want both you'll need to cut both fruit & nuts back to 1 c. each or you won't have enough dough.

1 hour before baking, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, arranging the racks to divide the oven up into thirds. If you only have one cookie sheet use the upper rack.

In a stand mixer cream the butter, (if desperate you can use a hand mixer or spoon but you'd better have very strong arms). Add the salt, vanilla and sugars, again beat well. Beat in the eggs. Now add 1/2 of the flour beating only until incorporated, add the baking soda and water, then the rest of the flour. This will be a relatively stiff dough. Now add the chips and dried fruit, you may need to let the dough warm up a bit to be soft enough to mix in the goodies.

Now refrigerate the dough overnight, skip this step if you're in a rush. When you're ready to bake take the dough out of the refrigerator, wet your hands and roll the dough into balls about the size of large walnuts. Drop them only cookies sheets lined with foil or parchment paper and bake in 375 degree oven for about 12 minutes until they are brown and crispy. This recipe is NOT supposed to make chewy cookies but crisp ones. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for about a minute until they firm and move to a cooling rack until completly cool.

Enjoy!