This is one of an ongoing series about The Pittsburgh Cookie Table. If you don’t know what that is then feel free to read up a bit on it here, where you will also find a recipe for the best Snickerdoodles ever or check out the Peanut Butter Blossoms over here. COOKIES!!!!!

This is a cookie that leaves me torn. I love macadamia nuts & buttery cookies, but am not a huge fan of white chocolate in general, it just tastes like sweet & I don’t really dig it. I also think I have a prejudice against it because of a couple years working in a pastry shop and HATING working with melted white chocolate, if you never have it is a challenge unlike working with regular chocolate, and my frustration with the medium tainted my opinion of it forever.

But maybe NOT in cookies. With macadamia nuts. So I will suffer the white chocolate…if you can call having to eat cookies suffering. Which really I don’t think you can. And I also have a couple of close friends who ADORE this cookie and since I am in the business, professionally and personally, of making things that make give the people in my world happy faces this was a recipe that was well worth my time to tweak out & perfect.

**NOTE: ‘White Chocolate Macadamia Nut’ & ‘Chocolate Chip’ are tedious as all hell to keep typing out so I’m shortening them to ‘WCMD’ & ‘CC’ to make my life easier.

Now one would think that this is just like an ordinary CC cookie, sub white chocolate & macadamias for semi-sweet & almonds (or whatever nut or lack of nut you prefer), and one would be wrong; the cookie itself is a touch different, not just the yumminess inside. WCMN tend to not be as chewy as a regular CC, more crisp and a little lighter in texture. I still like these a touch underbaked, but the edges crisp up more and the cookie itself shouldn’t spread as much so it tends to be thicker overall. Ideally this cookie has a balance between a rich buttery flavor with a lighter, crisper texture than your average CC cookie.

I make a couple different versions of this cookie, some more complicated than others involving things like coconut milk & shredded coconut or a blend of flours, but THIS version is the one I make most often…and not just because an individual who isn’t a big fan of coconut rarely has coconut around the house but because I genuinely like this cookie better. I dig the big crunchy chunks of toasted macadamias with the chewy, kinda raw cookie center and will begrudgingly admit that even the white chocolate works well in there, although I feel obligated to note that milk chocolate chips are also DIVINE as a substitution.

I prefer the macadamia nuts rough so while the mixer is doing its thing I crush up the nuts with a rolling pin in a bag. You could do this in a food processor or with a knife but both of those 1) involve doing dishes afterwards, 2) there is something very calming about beating the snot out of something with a rolling pin without all those messy assault charges and 3) both of those methods make a pretty uniform size, I like some big chunks, some small pieces & a bunch in the middle – so I smash them up instead.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies yield – around 42ish

• 1 1/2 cups Butter, softened
• 3/4 cup Light Brown Sugar
• 1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar
• 3 each Large Eggs
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
• 4 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 2 cups Crushed Macadamia Nuts
• 2 cups White Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 375, line trays with parchment. Whisk together the flour, baking soda & salt in a bowl and set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugars until fluffy. This will take a couple minutes, you want to make sure the mixture gets light and airy. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs one at a time, mixing completely between additions. Add the vanilla, mix in and start adding the flour in 4 stages, mixing all of the flour in between additions.

Add the crushed macadamias & chips, mix in to completely distribute. I use a black handled scoop, about 2 Tbsp, and scoop onto the lined tray by the dozen.

Bake at 375 for 11-13 minutes – the cookies are done when the tops are JUST starting to brown and the edges look crisp. Remove from the oven & let set up on the trays for 5 minutes then transfer to a rack to cool completely. When I store these I find its best to layer them between wax or parchment paper in a sealable container, seems to be the best way to keep them fresh and stop breakage.

Next post in The Pittsburgh Cookie Table series is going to be mini Zucchini Cookie Gobs with Cream Cheese Frosting. So unbelievably awesome!

Also, came across them while writing so – Gratuitous Pics of My Adorable Dogs!!!