Showing posts with label macadamia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macadamia. Show all posts

Saturday, July 18, 2009

White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

After I made the Hawaiian Delights, I had leftover macadamia nuts. I searched for recipes that used the nuts and found something that looked DELICIOUS.

My first attempt at these yielded some yummy cookies, but I think if I avoid making a few stupid errors next time, they'll taste even better :-)

One of the cardinal rules of baking or cooking is to read the recipe the whole way through before you start. I usually glance through it, being more concerned about whether I have all of the ingredients than if I need to add the eggs all at once or one at a time.

But I think I made a major goof this time, and I was lucky that it worked out fairly well. I share this with you in the hopes that you might be spared from my stupid move.

The third step says to whisk all dry ingredients together. Which I did.


And then I groaned when I read the next step, which clearly indicates that the sugar and brown sugar are not included in the "all dry ingredients" category as I had previously believed.

I surveyed my options and realized I had two choices: Go forward and hope for the best, or abandon ship, as I was out of brown sugar and could not start over.

I forged ahead. I added the dry ingredients to the warm butter and then continued with the recipe ... and the cookies were edible and even tasty, if I dare say so (and I do, but so did other people).

Ingredients:
2 c. plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted & cooled until warm
1 c. brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c. white chocolate chips
1/2 c. macadamia nuts, halved

Directions:
- Adjust oven racks to upper & lower -middle positions & heat oven to 325.
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Whisk dry ingredients together; set aside.
- With electric mixer, or by hand, mix butter & sugars until thoroughly combined.
- Beat in egg, yolk and vanilla until combined.
- Add dry ingredients & beat at low speed just until combined.
- Stir in chips and nuts.
- Roll scant 1/2 cup dough into ball.
- Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull into 2 equal halves.
- Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, place formed dough onto cookie sheet, leaving ample room between each ball.


- Bake, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft & puffy, 15-18 minutes depending on size.
- Cool cookies on sheets until able to lift without breaking and place on wire rack to cool.


From Good Things Catered, Adapted from ATK recipe

Friday, July 10, 2009

Hawaiian Delights

For this round of Operation Baking Gals, I continued my search of trying to find an easy, yummy cookie that would travel well and stay fresh. I don't know if I've succeeded on the travel well/stay fresh part (if I hear from our soldier, I'll let you know!), but I did use a recipe that was easy and yummy.

I found it while browsing through a Christmas cookie recipe book I got from work ... but it's not Christmas-specific at all.

The only drawback to what I baked for Sarah, our soldier? I know there are a lot of people in the world who don't like nuts and coconuts. But I hoped that even if Sarah was one of those people, the others in her unit might like them and help eat 'em up.

Ingredients:

1 18-ounce package refrigerated sugar cookie dough

1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts (salted or unsalted)

1 cup sweetened coconut

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all three ingredients in bowl with a fork. Drop rounded tablespoon mounds of mixture onto ungreased cookie sheet.


Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until golden. Cool on baking rack.

Source: O Christmas Treats: Favorite Cookies From St. Petersburg Times Readers

Blogger template 'PlainFish' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008