White Chocolate Chip Cookies for a Friend

A few days ago I wrote about how a friend of mine gave me some goodies from Hawaii. I'm always so thankful when someone thinks about me when traveling that they bring some pasalubong.

I beat my brain against a proverbial brick wall trying to come up with something good to make from the macadamia nuts. I thought sugar cookies with macadamias. Nah. Didn't have enough of the nuts to make those worthwhile. I only had slightly more than a cup of nuts, so I had to augment them with something otherwise I'd make 4 or 5 cookies.

It hit me ... white chocolate chips. Those chips are mild, so they won't overpower the macadamias. I'd make the now-classic New York Times (Jacque Torres-created) chocolate chip recipe substituting white chocolate chips for the chocolate disks he wants. And, I'd add the whole can of macadamias (minus the two giant ones I couldn't resist eating).

Ingredients

• 315 grams butter
• 280 grams brown sugar
• 225 grams white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 240 grams all-purpose flour
• 240 grams cake flour
• 1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 565 grams chocolate chips
• 4.5 oz. macadamia nuts with sea salt

Procedure

I put the butter in my mixer until it was creamed a bit. Last time, I put the butter and sugars in. Oh, the mess. The sugars were ejected quite nicely from the mixer. So, cream the butter a bit first. Then, I put in the sugars and cream for a few minutes. It is so important to let this whip for a while!

While the sugars and butter were getting to know each other better, I measured out the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Using a whisk, I stirred them together. This works great. Never any worries about little pockets of some minor ingredient (ever gotten a big bite of baking powder in a cookie? YUK!).

Then, I mixed in the eggs until they were just incorporated. Once the eggs were in, I did the same with the dry mixture. Over-mixing here is bad. Don't do it! Flour likes to make gluten and we are not making bread!

Lastly, I dumped in the chips and macadamias. I folded them in before letting the mixer go to work for about 30 seconds. Folding them helps distribute them faster without the dreaded over-mixing.

Using an ice cream scoop (don't ask me the size, I don't know and I keep forgetting to find out), I put them onto a couple of half-sized parchment-covered baking sheets ... 20 to a sheet.

Into the oven for 12 minutes at 350F (175C). I rotated left-to-right, front-to-back at about 7 minutes to ensure even cooking. I never used to do this, now I'm fairly religious about it. Things come out better. I like that.

Let cool on racks and protect them from the ravaging hordes that will try pillage them.

Test Results

Primary Test Group: Very good! My son ate one (that's saying something, he's picky these days).

Potential Improvements

More macadamia nuts!

I'm tempted to cook them a little longer to give them more structure.

Also, next time, I'll chop the nuts to distribute them more through the cookies. Some cookies received a nut, some didn't. Oops!

Conclusions

Another definite winner. Guess one just can't go wrong with the basics when it comes to cookies.

My son took a couple to school for snacks. He's happy with them.

Hope my friend likes them ...