Lovin' From the Oven

Day 5: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

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Day 5 of my 12 Days of Cookies: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies. I’m surprised at how many people love this cookie. Everyone that I assumed who doesn’t like macadamia nut cookies, actually do. Maybe it’s because I think most of the people that I know are not nut-lovers. This recipe is my by far my favorite white chocolate macadamia nut recipe, mainly due to the texture. They are sturdy enough that they won’t break when packing them for travel, but remain soft when you bite into them. Give them a shot; there are more white chocolate macadamia nut cookie lovers out there than you think!

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup softened butter
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

– Heat oven to 375*F (190*C).
– In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt
– In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla.
– Gently stir in flour mixture.
– Fold in the white chocolate and macadamia nuts.
– Drop cookies by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a non stick cookie sheet about 1-inch apart.
– Bake for 9 to 12 minutes or until lightly golden.

Sidenote: Gosh, my visitor count has been going up like crazy recently and I want to thank you guys for visiting! I haven’t hit a thousand different viewers in a day, yet.. My past couple days have been just shy, of about 930, 940. That’s my new goal for myself.. reach 1000 first time visitors in one day. 🙂

Cheesecake pops

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Finally, my last post of the Thanksgiving treats that I made. These were an absolute delight and everyone loved them. Why? Well, as I figured.. everyone loves cheesecake, but no one wants to finish their own slice. So why not make them into individual bites and top it off with a stick? I mean, the best food are the ones on sticks. I then dipped the individual cheesecakes into melted chocolate and then whatever topping I desired. My batch consisted of toffee pieces, walnut bits, and a variety of sprinkles. How marvelous! I used the recipe from a Daring Baker’s challenge a couple months ago:

Cheesecake Pops
Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor
makes 30–40 pops

5 8-oz pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsps pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream

boiling water as needed
thirty-forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 lb chocolate, finely chopped
2 tbsp vegetable shortening
assorted decorations: chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees (optional)

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety. Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

I only made 3/5 of this recipe and ended up with like 60 pops and baked it in an 8×8 square pan. This recipe makes A LOT. I would recommend cutting it down by a half, if not more than that. This recipe was also quite time consuming, so you have to be patient and start these early if you are making them for an event.

Giant Chocolate Toffee Cookies

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I normally don’t even like chocolate cookies, but I’ll take one of these any day. The only problem I had with this cookie was that it wouldn’t stay together because it was so chewy/fragile, almost brownie or fudge like. It was probably because I didn’t chill them long enough. I never have patience when it comes to chilling the dough. I mean.. really? Wait 45 minutes? Why can’t I just throw them into the oven already? I’m not very patient at all, actually, when it comes to baking. Hence the reason that I hate dealing with yeast dough and rarely deal with it.

Anyways, who knew that walnuts, toffee, and chocolate go so well together? I loved that this recipe used actual chocolate instead of cocoa powder to make the cookie (that’s probably why this recipe is a winner for me).

From epicurious:

  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 pound (2 cups) semisweet chocolate, chopped
  • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 3/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 5 1.4-ounce chocolate-covered English toffee bars (such as Heath), coarsely chopped (I used about 3/4 a bag of Heath’s toffee bits)
  • 1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl; whisk to blend. Stir chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Cool mixture to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, then toffee and nuts. Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or waxed paper. Drop batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto sheets, spacing 2 1/2 inches apart. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 15 minutes. Cool on sheets. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)

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