Yesterday after voting early in the morning, I was kind of riding a high all day. It felt great to take part in the voting process! So I rode that high and got busy tackling some projects around the house. The first was to use those really brown fruit-fly attracting bananas and make some banana bread to tuck in the freezer. The second project was to bake up some cookies that Zander had requested. He picked up some white chocolate chips in the store the other day and asked me to make him some cookies with them. Somewhere along the way, my children have become huge fans of white chocolate. Poor Zander has had an aversion to chocolate chips ever since I made cookies with bittersweet chips- he really didn’t like those cookies, and ever since then, really grudgingly tastes anything made with chocolate chips. White chocolate is a winner just about every single time, so I dug through my recipes and found one that I hadn’t made in quite a while.
Toffe-Nut Cookies, I think, were originally a Martha Stewart recipe. I suspect I watched her make them on Martha Stewart Living, but I’m not completely sure on that, so don’t quote me or anything. I thought the idea of adding toffee chips to cookies was brilliant, and the first time I made them, I followed the recipe, despite the heart attack at the grocery line for 2 1/2 cups of macadamia nuts. They were fantastic- but I thought they were missing something, so I started adding white chocolate chips to them, and then I thought they were perfect. This time around, I used less of the toffee chips than called for, pecans, white chocolate chips, and a few handfuls of dried cranberries. The cookies were as tasty as I’d remembered. This is a great basic cookie dough open to all kinds of possibilities for mix-ins. I definitely think that dried blueberries would be amazing!
Zander was excited to see the cookies when he got home from preschool, but was quickly dismayed to discover the pecans inside. Where does this boy get this sudden nut aversion? There must be a cartoon or Nick show character who doesn’ t like nuts, because he used to like them.
Anyway, the cookies are wonderful, and worth the trouble. I’ve often thought about making them with just all-purpose flour, instead of adding some cake flour, but since I always seem to have the cake flour on hand, I just use what is tried and true. For my third around-the-house project yesterday, I headed outside into the gorgeous weather and put the garden to bed for the year. You can read about that project at my Garden Notes if that interests you. I found a few surprises which I intend on putting to use over the next few days.
Toffee-Nut Cookies
Use any combination of chips, dried fruit, and nuts you like. The original recipe called for toffee bits and macadamia nuts. My favorite combo is pecans, toffee bits, white chocolate chips and dried cranberries
3 sticks butter, softened 1 cup white sugar 2/3 cup packed brown sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups cake flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 3 cups toffee chips 2 1/2 cups macadamia nutsPreheat oven to 350º.
Beat the butter and the sugars together until nice and creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Add the flours, soda and salt and mix until combined. Fold in any additional ingredients (chips, nuts, etc.)
Scoop tablespoons of dough onto ungreased baking sheets and bake at 350º for about 15 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes about 75 cookies depending on the size you scoop them out.