Melting Moment Macadamia Butter Cookies

Melting Moment Macadamia Butter Cookies - made dough November 4, 2018, modified from Love Foodies

   

These are buttery morsels of vanilla cookie with the crunch of macadamia nuts. In the midst of the holiday cookie baking season, this is one that might stand out with its sheer simplicity.

It isn't fancy but if you like vanilla, butter or macadamia nuts, this may appeal to your palate more than fancier cookies. There's something about a well-made butter cookie that triumphs over more flamboyant cookies, at least for me.

Toast the macadamia nuts to bring out their flavor, use fresh butter and real vanilla extract, none of that imitation stuff. And, of course, underbaking will give you that rich texture, not the dry crumble of an overbaked cookie.

If you give away cookies for the holidays, if you make these small and chubby enough, you can even nestle them in holiday-themed cupcake liners to give them a little decorative glory. But their flavor will win over your recipients without the fancy touches.

3/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons water
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup salted macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

1. Beat butter in large bowl of stand mixer with paddle attachment until creamy. Add vanilla extract and water and mix until combined.
2. Whisk flour, confectioners' sugar and salt together in medium-size bowl. Add to butter mixture and beat until combined. Fold in macadamia nuts. Chill dough for 10-15 minutes if soft. Portion into small dough balls, cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space frozen dough balls. Bake 8-10 minutes or just until the edges begin to slightly brown. Remove from oven, cool for several minutes then transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

Death by Cookie

Death by Cookie - made dough November 3, 2018, adapted from Hugs and Cookies

You gotta love the title of this recipe, right? What a way to go, I always say. And, once you try this cookie, it would be the way to go.

I amped up the death rays on this one by adding dollops of Nutella to the batter so that when you scoop it out, the large swaths of Nutella remained intact and once the cookies are baked and you bite into one, you get both the punch from the chocolate chips and the puddles of Nutella throughout the cookie.

Since this is a fudge cookie, you want to just barely bake it and you definitely want to let it cool to room temperature for maximum fudgy texture. Eat it while it’s still too warm and it’ll just be mushy. Wait until it’s just room temperature and the chocolate chips will still be soft but the cookie will have set enough to make it fudge, not mush. Trust me, it’s worth the wait.

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Nutella, optional but recommended

1. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Melt the 8 ounces of chocolate chips either in the microwave or in the top half of a double boiler set over hot water. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and vanilla; set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth. Beat in the brown sugar and granulated sugar until combined.
5. Mix in the beaten egg-vanilla combination until just combined. Add the melted chocolate and beat until combined. Add the dry ingredients on slow speed and mix until just combined. Do not overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips. If adding Nutella, dollop over cookie dough.
6. Chill dough for at least 30 minutes then portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, leaving swirls of Nutella, if using. Cover and chill or freeze for a couple of hours or overnight.
7. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space frozen dough balls. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges have just set. Middles will appear soft. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Vanilla Shortbread Cookies

Vanilla Shortbread Cookies - made dough October 13, 2018 from The Semisweet Sisters

Classic, purist, vanilla cookie eaters: pull up a mixing bowl and grab the butter. But make sure it’s fresh butter and not something that’s been lurking in your refrigerator for months on end. Because when you have a cookie with so few ingredients, you’re going to really taste the pure simple taste of those ingredients and they should be good. Not to mention, who wants to eat old butter?

This is the kind of cookie my nephew, Vanilla King, would prefer in his Vanilla King heyday. It’s literally a plain shortbread cookie. But oh so good. If you’ve ever had a Mexican Wedding Cake, you know how melt-y soft they are with a rich mouthfeel? Imagine these cookies are like that but without the nuts and powdered sugar coating.

Bake until the edges are a light golden brown and the middles are just barely past the raw stage. The edges will be light with a little crisp and the middle will be soft and chewy. If you bake them a little longer, more of the cookie will be light-airy-crisp but I prefer the middle part of the cookie to have some chewiness.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Mix butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until creamy. Stir in flour and mix just until combined.
2. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls and pat slightly into thick discs. Cover and chill for several hours or overnight. 
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough discs and bake 12-15 minutes.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough October 27, 2018 from Averie Cooks

I was hoping to get cute, puffy little cookies with this recipe and the original blog showed exactly what I hoped to get. Unfortunately, hoping and what I actually got were two different things.

Not that there’s anything wrong with these cookies. On the contrary, they were nice bite-sized-ish cookies. But they didn’t stay as thick as I wanted and while the mini chips were perfect for their size, they just ended up looking like typical small-ish chocolate chip cookies. When it comes to the chocolate chip cookies, I prefer not to be typical. It’s either behemoth cookies or dainty petites. These landed somewhere in the small to medium side of the spectrum.

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter on low speed until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Add brown sugar and granulated sugar and beat on medium speed until creamed and well combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
2. Add egg and vanilla, beating until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
3. Add flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt until just combined, 30 seconds. Do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chips.
4. Use a small cookie scoop to form small dough balls. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space mini dough balls. Bake 6-8 minutes or until barely golden brown around the edges and middles no longer look raw. Do not overbake. Let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Pecan Chews

Pecan Chews - made dough October 14, 2018 from A Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

I’m rereading Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen mysteries again and tried out this recipe from the first in the series, The ChocolateChip Cookie Murder. Mostly because I still had the pecans from my cousin and wanted to put them to good use. 

This once again breaks my no-nuts-in-my-cookies rule because, like the Pecan Sandies, it’s virtually impossible to make “Pecan Chews” without pecans. But, unlike the sandies, this had a more typical cookie texture in that it was on the chewy end of the cookie spectrum, not the shortbread-texture end of the cookie continuum.

A cautionary note: the dough is really soft on this one when it's first mixed. I advise chilling it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, at least until it's first enough to scoop into dough balls. Otherwise your cookies might spread too thin.

One thing surprised me about this cookie. The taste and texture were actually quite good and were even good enough for me not to mind nuts in this cookie. However, I happened to use a spicy pecan mix from the stash my cousin gave me and it turns out I don’t like spicy pecans. So that was somewhat of a drawback.

But apparently I’m in the minority on this one. This recipe made several dozen cookies so I ended up bringing two platefuls to work and they disappeared faster than most desserts I bring in. One of my coworkers even asked me for the recipe, the most sincere compliment someone can pay. So there you go; we’ve all got different taste buds and this one suited more people than I expected.

1 cup butter
3 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups finely chopped pecans
4 cups flour

1. Melt butter and add brown sugar. Mix well and let cool. Add eggs and beat to combine. Add salt, baking soda, vanilla and pecans; mix well. Add flour and mix until just combined.
2. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls (chill first if too soft to make into balls), flatten slightly into thick discs, cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough discs on baking sheets and bake 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheets for several minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Brown Butter Toffee Cookies

Brown Butter Toffee Cookies - made September 15, 2018 from Sugar Spun Run

I made these awhile back and unfortunately didn't do a write up immediately after so I can't remember very much about these. Which doesn't mean they're bad, just that they were probably good but didn't stick in my mind for any particular reason.

Bear in mind I bake a lot though and I have pretty jaded taste buds so it takes a lot for something to stick. In general, I'd say these were good. Mine look a little more baked than the ones from the original blog. I didn't underbake them as much as the original blog as in my oven. If I had, that might've made them stand out more to me. These weren't dry as I baked them though; just more like a standard chocolate chip cookie but with toffee bits added.

1 cup unsalted butter, melted, browned and cooled
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk chocolate toffee pieces
1 cup chocolate chips
sea salt for sprinkling, optional

1. Combine brown sugar and granulated sugar with browned butter, mix well. Stir in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla extract and stir to combine.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to butter-sugar mixture, stirring until ingredients are just combined. Stir in milk chocolate toffee pieces and chocolate chips.
3. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and pat into thick discs. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space frozen dough discs. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are just beginning to turn golden brown and middles are just barely past looking raw. Remove from oven and sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough September 9, 2018 from Created by Diane

Around the time I made the Oatmeal Chocolate ChipCookies, I also made these Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I made these pretty hefty-sized as well since you know, cookies. I think I only got 7 or 8 cookies out of one batch, I made each cookie so big. These didn’t spread that much so how big you make the cookie dough balls is going to be close to how they come out when baked.

When it comes to chocolate cookies, you know I always advocate underbaking them since chocolate sets once it cools and you want that magical fudgy interior. This was no exception. I also like the contrast of the lighter-colored peanut butter chips against the dark chocolate cookie even if I’m pretty indifferent to peanut butter and peanut butter chips.

I gave these away to some long-time friends when we met for dinner and they liked everything about the cookies so I guess they were a hit.

3/4 cup butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, combined

1. In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and peanut butter together until smooth and creamy. Add in granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla.
2. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined.
3. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Add to wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
4. Portion into golf-ball size dough balls and flatten slightly into thick discs. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours of overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough discs. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until set. Do not overbake.

Nutella Swirl Brownies

Nutella Swirl Brownies - made October 7, 2018 from Rock Recipes

Hmm, so, normally I would be in raptures with even the concept of a Nuella swirl brownie. Because it would be as the name implied, right? Brownies made with Nutella mixed into the batter itself and with even more Nutella swirled into the batter so that when the brownie baked, you would get large swaths of Nutella intermingled with dense, fudgy brownies.

Yeah, that was the vision. My execution, however, left something to be desired. For one thing, as you all know by now, I always use Pernigotti cocoa which has a dark chocolate flavor that pretty much overpowers the Nutella flavor and the Nutella didn’t stand a chance being mixed into the brownie batter. That would’ve been okay because you still had the swirl-in Nutella element going on. Except I don’t think I dolloped enough because I didn’t have swaths of Nutella. More like a sprinkle here and there.

But my main sin with this brownie is it seems like I overbaked it. I didn’t think I had because the toothpick test kept yielding raw batter but it was in there for so long that some of the Nutella “swirl” looked like it burned. What the heck? They weren’t dry but you can tell from the pictures that they’re not as moist-fudgy-dense as I normally prefer my brownies. I suggest checking these at the 30-minute mark, if not sooner, then erring on the side of caution and taking them out before 40 minutes, depending on your oven. 

1 cup butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
2/3 cup Nutella
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup Nutella, for swirling

1. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar to dissolve. Cool slightly before adding the Nutella, whisking until smooth and combined. Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla, mixing until just combined.
3. Sift together the cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter-egg mixture and mix until smooth. Fold in the flour and chocolate chips.
4. Spread batter evenly into the pan and swirl in the remaining 1/3 cup Nutella. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely before cutting and serving.