Soft and chewy with crunchy edges, these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are a delicious treat you can make in under 40 minutes. You won’t need to rest the dough in the fridge before baking, so it’s a very easy-to-make, straightforward cookie recipe.
Jump to:
Ingredients and substitutions
Flour - Use bread flour to make chewy cookies but, if you want, you can replace it with all-purpose flour.
Baking soda - If you aren’t making caky cookies, you want to use baking soda for your white chocolate macadamia nut cookie recipe.
Salt and vanilla extract - Apart from nuts and chocolate, these will be our flavorings.
Butter - Use unsalted butter at room temperature.
Sugars - I use white granulated sugar and light brown sugar for my chocolate macadamia cookies. You can replace light brown sugar with a dark one.
Egg - We will need only one large egg, which should be at room temperature.
Chocolate - For convenience, I use white chocolate chips so I don't need to chop anything. You can buy your favorite chocolate bar and chop it up instead.
Nuts - You want to crush or roughly chop our macadamia nuts. You still want to get bigger chunks of nuts in the cookies to feel the crunch of these luxurious buttery nuts.
Cooking tips
Don't overbeat the butter and sugar. We don't want to beat too much air into our dough because it will make the cookies less chewy and more porous. Once you see that the butter and sugars look like a thick, homogenous paste, you can stop beating.
Don't overmix the cookie dough. The bread flour that we use to make these cookies is a very strong one. It has a lot of protein and will form gluten bonds fast, so mix the final dough just until it has no dry ingredients left.
Bake in two batches. You don't want to place two baking sheets in your oven at the same time for this recipe, so bake in batches. I like to fill both sheets with cookie dough balls and keep one of them in the fridge while the second is in the oven. If you don't have two baking sheets, fill the one you have with the first batch of the dough and, while you bake it, keep the rest of the dough in the fridge. You will then need to cool down your sheet (I run it briefly under cold water, wipe it, and line it with the same parchment paper) before scooping on the second batch of balls.
Try to spread your nuts and chocolate chips evenly. The more add-ins in one cookie, the less it will spread. So, you will get some cookies that are chunkier than the others, which is fine if you ask me. However, if you're really going after consistency, you’ll want to spread your nuts and chocolate chips as evenly as possible throughout the dough.
You can roll the cookie dough by hand. This dough isn’t sticky unless your kitchen is hot and the butter will melt before the dough hits the oven. In general, if your kitchen is 20-21C (68-70F), the dough will stay firm enough to shape it by hand.
Step by step directions
1. Preheat the oven to 355F (180C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a mixing bowl, add the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the butter, white and brown sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium-high for 2 minutes or until it resembles a homogenous paste.
4. Then, add the egg and beat until emulsified.
5. Add the dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
6. Scoop 20 even cookie dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake one at a time for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies have spread and the edges turned a golden color.
7. Remove from the oven and drop onto a flat surface to deflate the cookies. Let them rest on the sheet for a couple of minutes. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
8. Bake the second batch.
Possible variations
Dark or milk chocolate - You don't have to make white chocolate chip cookies with nuts if you don't like white chocolate, or if you think it's too sweet. Go ahead and replace it with dark or milk chocolate. You can also skip the chocolate part completely and add more nuts instead.
Other nuts - I think these macadamia nut cookies with white chocolate are for special occasions, but I understand that these nuts are pricey and you may want a cheaper option. The macadamia nut flavor can't be replaced but you can get a similar crunch and size from hazelnuts.
FAQ
Store completely cooled cookies in an air-tight container lined with a paper towel at room temperature for up two weeks.
You can make the dough, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Yes, you can freeze them for up to 2 months.
Wrap your dough in plastic wrap and then in a piece of foil and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight and let it reach a scoopable consistency at room temperature before shaping and baking.
More related recipes
Recipe card
White chocolate macadamia nut cookies
Equipment
- Stand mixer or hand mixer and a large mixing bowl
- Digital kitchen scale
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
- 200 g bread flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 140 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 90 g white granulated sugar
- 90 g brown sugar
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 100 g macadamia nuts crushed
- 100 g white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 355F (180C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a mixing bowl, add the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or you can use a bowl and a hand mixer), add the butter, white and brown sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium-high for 2 minutes or until it resembles a homogenous paste.
- Then, add the egg and beat until emulsified.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
- Scoop 20 even dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake one at a time for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies have spread and the edges turned a golden color.
- Remove from the oven and drop onto a flat surface to deflate the cookies. Let them rest on the sheet for a couple of minutes. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down completely.
- Bake the second batch. If you have only one baking sheet, the dough can wait in the fridge while the first batch is baking. You should place the cookie dough balls on a completely cooled-down baking sheet.
Leave a comment