Lovin' From the Oven

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Blondies

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I was curious as to if the same dough would be able to make cookies, too. Sure, enough…

They make pretty cookies!

But definitely not as tasty.


The wonderful people at Oh Nuts! offered to send me some items to try out in my baking endeavors. Their customer service is amazing. Really. They kept in touch and updated me instantly on my order and shipment. I received the items in less than a week after they contacted me! They allowed me to choose a couple items to try, and one of my picks was a bag of macadamia nuts. Here’s a picture of all the goodies that I tweeted a while ago:


From left to right: macadamia nuts, dried cantaloupe, dried guava slices, dried mango.

Little did I know how big the bag I was going to receive really was. I always hated buying macadamia nuts from the grocery store because it’s SO expensive, but Oh Nuts! solved this problem my selling in bulk! What a great deal for a baking necessity. Not only that, but it comes in a resealable ziploc heavy duty bag.. perfect for using and reusing! No need to worry about storage. They also use good quality ingredients that result in wonderful items.

This recipe comes from Erin’s Food Files. They made very thick bars and I would even bake it in an even larger pan to get better results. These are definitely for the white chocolate macadamia nut lovers! I tried to bake them as a cookie just to see how it would turn out, and although they turned out, they weren’t very tasty. They didn’t spread and stayed as balls. This recipe wasn’t meant for cookies! I thoroughly enjoyed the bars, but I’d prefer a regular white chocolate macadamia nut cookie any day.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound, plus 1 teaspoon butter, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 3 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 cups white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup macadamia nuts, toasted and rough chopped

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Place 1/2 pound of the butter and the brown sugar in a bowl and cream together on medium speed until a smooth batter is formed. While the machine is running, add the eggs and vanilla extract, until incorporated into the batter.
  3. Sift together 3 cups flour and baking powder. Slowly add the flour mixture to the batter and mix on low speed until a dough is formed. Very gently, by turning the mixer on and then off, fold the chips and nuts into the dough.
  4. Once the dough is all blended, grease a 9 x 13 pan with the remaining butter and dust with the 1 tablespoon of flour. Pour the batter into the pan and place in the preheated oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until set yet still moist.

Dark Chocolate & Almond Cookies

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When I was little, I used to be allergic to chocolate. Crazy, right? How could anyone be allergic to such a divine substance? Whenever I ate chocolate, I got a nosebleed momentarily after. It was weird because all of my siblings were the same way; chocolate equals nosebleed. Of course, that never stopped us from eating Crunch ice cream bars or nibbling a bit of chocolate every now and then. It just meant that we had to be prepared later on with wads of tissues and a comfortable place to sit down.

I actually got so many nosebleeds in elementary school that I became BFFs with the nurse, Barbara. She was the sweetest little lady and knew me by name. She always knew to grab the ice pack and tons of tissues the moment she saw me walking through the door. Why did this happen? I’ll never know. All I know is that I eventually grew out of it and was able to eat all the chocolate in the world without a worry. Thank goodness!

This recipe is adapted from pixie baker and I’d say it’s a good base for a cookie. I’ve come to the conclusion that baking cookies with bread flour is my favorite way to make cookies. It always results in a firm and chewy cookie. I used 72% dark chocolate, but that may have been a bit much for some people, so feel free to use whatever kind of chocolate you want!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp.
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 cups Bread flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking Soda
  • 1 1/3 cups dark or bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Dark Chocolate Bar)
  • 1 to 1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped almonds
  1. In a large bowl, cream butter and both sugars just until they come together. Add the egg and vanilla extract, beat just until incorporated. In a seperate medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. When thoroughly mixed, add to batter and stir just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. The dough should be neither sticky nor dry. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least two hours.
  2. Preheat oven to 350.
  3. Form the cookie dough into balls.
  4. Place the cookies on an ungreased insulated cookie sheet or an upside down rimmed cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for five minutes before removing.

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Toffee Butter Cookies

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I’m a terrible shopper. I really am. Terrible as in, I’m itching to go shopping whenever I’m not working, bored, or whenever I’m feeling down. Earlier this week, I wandered into the Chanel store to take a gander at all the beautiful bags, pondering if there were any more lovelies to add to my “must have before I die” list. Lucky for my future wallet, there was nothing else I really wanted besides my usual 2.55 jumbo classic red flap in caviar leather.

Just then, a wonderful salesman happened to ask me if there was anything he could help me with, and I inquired about my dream bag out of curiosity (it’s really hard to find the purse and if you do, there’s always a waiting list). He proceeded to tell me that there was a waiting list of about twelve people and that they’d only be getting five (for the year, I’m assuming?). Before I knew it, he was adding me to the wait list so that I would be informed when they received my dream bag for me.

I walked out of the store thinking, “What the heck did I just do?” But there was no harm done because I didn’t and won’t get charged anything– I’d just be the first to know when the purse came in. I definitely don’t have the money right now to buy that purse (not quite sure if I ever will), but I told myself that I will be a proud owner of it before I die. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

OH! I would also love to welcome my boyfriend’s third niece, Giuliana Rose, into the world! 🙂

This recipe is from Miss in the Kitchen. The cookies are made with powdered sugar, so the cookie itself is very light and fluffy. They don’t spread at all, but I was fine with it because they looked like cute little buttons. These toffee butter cookies were not heavy at all and had such a lightweight texture. Toffee and butter complement each other wonderfully and I wouldn’t change a thing about this recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup butter,softened, no substitutes
  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup toffee bits
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat together with electric mixer, butter and powdered sugar, add egg and vanilla, beat until fluffy.
  2. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and toffee bits, beat at low speed until well combined.
  3. Use a medium cookie scoop or a tablespoon full rounded into balls and place 2 inches apart on greased or lined cookie sheets.
  4. Bake 10-12 minutes or until cookies are starting to brown on the edges. Cool on cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, move to wire rack to finish cooling.

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