I still have cookies on the brain. After nibbling on those chocolate chip cookies all week, I really had a desire to see how that dough fared with white chocolate and macadamia nuts. So while out doing the weekly shopping I picked up the nuts and white chocolate chips. I was very excited to find that Mauna Loa is packaging chopped macadamia nuts for baking. They are the perfect size for a batch of cookies at six ounces, and it was so much easier to use than having to chop up those roly-poly nuts. Abigail was thrilled to peer through the grocery bags and find the bag of white chocolate chips, for some reason my kids have picked up a love of white chocolate chip cookies, and have been requesting them at every opportunity. So despite the near-80 sticky temperatures, I went ahead and mixed up another batch of dough, this time using the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut adaptation.
Other than swapping out the chips and adding nuts, I decided to make a few minor changes to the recipe. Since I find white chocolate to be sweeter, I thought that increasing the salt to a full teaspoon would help counter the sweetness of the chocolate. The other change I made was to the process- instead of adding the vanilla at the end, I opted to beat it in with the eggs and yolks. I didn’t notice any discernible change to the final cookie as a result of that. Adding the extra salt was the perfect decision as the dough perfectly balances the sweet white chips. We all are having a difficult time staying away from the cookie jar, and I daresay, this variation of the cookie dough may be even better than the original.
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Based on a recipe for Lee Napoli’s Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2 lb. butter — (2 sticks)
1c. light brown sugar
1/2 c. dark brown sugar
3/4 c. white granulated sugar
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
3 1/4 c. flour
1 t. salt
3/4 t. baking soda
1T. vanilla 1 1/2 cups chopped macadamia nuts 1 (11 oz) package white chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Pour into a large bowl. When the butter cools to slightly warm, add the light brown sugar, dark brown sugar and white sugar. Mix well. Beat in the eggs, yolks and vanilla. Add the flour, salt and baking soda, and combine well. Stir in the macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips.
Drop by rounded teaspoons onto prepared cookie sheets and bake until nicely browned, about 10-11 minutes. It’s always best to slightly under bake cookies so when they cool they remain chewy.
Makes approximately 6 dozen cookies.
I don’t know if they still make them, but for awhile they had a bagged mix of chopped Macadamias and chocolate chips/white chocolate on the market!
Oh, now that would be evil to have around our house! I’ll have to keep an eye out, one of our grocery stores has a great selection of baking chips. 🙂
hi Erika! it’s been a while since i visited tummy treasure, so i’m pleasantly surprised that you’ve moved. but it’s for good change, i love the new layout. you did a very good job!
Good to “see” you Eliza! Thank you for the kind compliments, it’s been a lot of fun to put it all together-almost an obsession, really. But a fun obsession.