White chocolate macadamia cookies
These are a classic of American bakeries, pairing the milky sweetness of white chocolate with the buttery richness of toasted macadamia nuts. The cookies have crisp golden edges and thick, chewy centers thanks to brown sugar, and every bite has soft chunks of chocolate and crunchy nuts.
- Difficulty
- Very easy
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 13 min
- Rising or chilling
- 1 hr
- Total time
- 1 hr 43 min
- Method
- Oven-baked
Ingredients
Instructions
Step 1
Spread 130 g macadamia nuts on a tray, toast them in the oven at 160°C for about 8 to 10 minutes, then let them cool and cut them in halves or quarters. Toasting first makes the nuts more fragrant and keeps them crunchy inside the moist dough. They are ready when they are an even pale gold and smell rich and buttery.
Step 2
Beat 170 g softened unsalted butter with 160 g brown sugar and 50 g granulated sugar on medium speed for about three minutes. The air bubbles created now help the cookies rise slightly and give the edges a light texture. The mixture is ready when it is paler, fluffy and you can no longer see large sugar crystals.
Step 3
Add 50 g egg and 6 g vanilla extract and beat on low speed until the egg is fully blended into the butter. A room-temperature egg will not make the butter seize and separate. Stop when the mixture is smooth and glossy with no lumpy patches.
Step 4
In a separate bowl, mix 260 g all-purpose flour with 4 g baking soda and 3 g salt, add it to the butter and stir with a flat spatula until almost no dry flour remains. Mixing the dry ingredients beforehand spreads the baking soda evenly, so there are no bitter spots in the cookies. The dough is ready when only a few white streaks remain.
Step 5
Add 170 g roughly chopped white chocolate and the toasted macadamia nuts and stir a few times until evenly distributed. Cutting the chocolate into large chunks gives the cookies distinct pools of melted chocolate instead of having it disappear into the dough. The dough is ready when it is soft and pliable, with no dry flour and nuts showing evenly throughout.
Step 6
Cover the bowl tightly and chill the dough in the fridge for about an hour. Chilling lets the brown sugar absorb moisture, so the cookies bake up thicker with a deeper caramel flavor. The dough is ready when it has firmed up and can be scooped into balls without spreading.
Step 7
Heat the oven to 175°C, scoop the dough into balls of about one heaping tablespoon each, shape them slightly tall and set them about six centimeters apart on a tray lined with parchment paper. Tall balls give the cookies thicker, chewier centers. The tray is ready when the balls are all the same size, with only about eight per tray.
Step 8
Bake one tray at a time on the middle rack at 175°C for 11 to 13 minutes. The cookies need to come out while the centers are still underdone so they stay chewy once cool. They are done when the edges are golden while the centers are still pale and slightly puffed.
Step 9
Let the cookies rest on the tray for ten minutes before moving them to a rack; if any have spread out of shape, place the rim of a glass over each one and swirl gently to round it again. Hot cookies are very soft and need time for their texture to set. They are ready when the centers have sunk slightly and the cookies lift off in one piece.
Equipment
- Oven
- Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
- Mixing bowl
- Hand mixer
- Spatula
- Kitchen scale
- Wire cooling rack
- Refrigerator
Tips
- White chocolate scorches very easily, so choose one made with real cocoa butter and chop it from a bar rather than using chips with stabilizers.
- If you do not have macadamia nuts, you can use roasted cashews instead; the flavor will be a little different but still rich and lovely with white chocolate.
- Press a few extra macadamia pieces on top of the dough balls before baking to make the cookies look even prettier.
Storage
Cooled cookies stay chewy in an airtight container at room temperature for about four days. Raw dough balls can be frozen for up to three months; there is no need to thaw them before baking, just add about two minutes to the baking time.
Common problems and how to fix them
- The cookies spread thin and the edges burn.
- The butter was too soft or the dough was not cold enough. Use butter that is just softened and still slightly cool when pressed, and give the dough its full rest in the fridge.
- The macadamia nuts turn soft and lose their aroma.
- The nuts were not toasted first, so they absorbed moisture from the dough. Next time, toast them until pale golden and let them cool completely before mixing them in.
This recipe is based on the common ratios for this bake and is written entirely in our own words.
