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The Best Browned Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

April 15, 2016 by Joy the Baker 55 Comments

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The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Y’all, we’re taking it straight to the mall.  Grab your Strawberry Kiwi Snapple and your teddy bear backpack… we’re going shopping at Hot Topic, we’re dousing ourselves in free samples of Gap Dream and we’re spending our allowance on cookies at Mrs Fields.  White Chocolate Macadamia Nut is the way to go if you’re a baller / shot caller which CLEARLY we are!  See:  Snapple, backpacks, and Hot Topic apparel.     

Google search words in writing this post:  teddy bear backpack, 90s.  

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

I set out to make THE BEST white chocolate and macadamia combination.  We know the gold standard of this cookie (thank you Mrs Fields) but creating that soft, rich, gooey but firm at home seemed rather elusive.  

Remember when we made the best cookies in the world?  That’s not even hyperbole.  These Milk Chocolate Cookies and Cream Cookies are soft, chewy, sweet, buttery and  hold their shape the oven, and are the best cookies in the world. 

These will be the base of our mall-cookie dreams.  Tweaks applied.  

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

We’ve got three kinds of fat in these cookies.  Stay with me.  I know… I know.  

Cream cheese for creamy softness.  Softened butter for traditional cookie times.  Browned butter for depth and nutty flavor.  

Into the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt we’re also adding dry milk powder.  It will add a richness and softness to these cookies we can’t get another way.  Is the milk powder negotiable?  Nope.  

If you’d like a no milk powder recipe, try adding white chocolate and macadamia nuts to these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Still so good, just a different cookie.  

We’re making a big ol’ batch of these cookies because if we’re twerking so much fat in so many different ways, we might as well make a big batch and save some dough in the freezer.  (Future selves thank us.)

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

I used raw macadamia nuts because I think they’re crisp and buttery enough to go into a cookie in their raw state.  If you have toasted and salted… also delicious!  

When it comes to white chocolate, take a look at the ingredients, you want to make sure that you white chocolate is actual cocoa butter and not just flavored oils in white.  

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Cream cheese and softened butter are whipped up, good and strong with brown sugar and granulated sugar.  The browned butter is added and the mixture smooths.  

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Eggs are beaten into the sugar and fat and the mixture becomes like velvet.  

Slow beat in the dry ingredients.  

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Nuts and white chocolate.  The bigger the better, really. 

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

One cookie scoop for these cookies, though really… two scoops is better.  

The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Baked to golden and gooey.  These cookies are on the soft and chewy side with loads of flavor from cream cheese and browned butter.  They also happen to stay soft and chewy for as long as you can manage to keep them in the cookie jar. 

Make all of your Mrs Fields dreams come true.  So close, you can just taste it… I know!

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The Best Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
  • Author: Joy the Baker
  • Prep Time: 80
  • Cook Time: 12
  • Total Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
  • Yield: 4 1x
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Ingredients

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  • 8 oz. (1 block) cream cheese, well softened
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted to browned and cooled slightly (about 7 tablespoons browned butter)
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup instant milk powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 – 2 cups coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
  • 2 cups coarsely chopped white chocolate

Instructions

  1. In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese and softened butter until light and creamy, about a minute. Make sure that both the cream cheese and butter are very well softened to avoid any lumps. Add the browned butter and sugars and beat until well combined. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat on medium-low speed for 3 minutes until pale and fluffy.
  2. In a medium bowl whisk together flour, milk powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until well combined.
  3. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Fold in the chopped nuts and white chocolate.
  4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap (or cover the bowl in plastic wrap) and refrigerate for at least 1 hours, or overnight.
  5. Place a rack in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  6. Spoon out dough balls, a heaping 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie. Place on the prepared baking sheets, providing at least 1 1/2 inches between each cookies. Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes, until edges begin to brown but the middle is still a bit gooey! Cool before serving to allow them to hold their shape.

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  1. Amanda

    March 5, 2022 at 12:26 pm

    These simply are the best. You can’t go wrong with browned butter AND cream cheese in a cookie, can you? These cookies have a nice crisp edge with a gooey center and I can’t stop eating them. I have shared them with friends who also agree that they are absolutely scrummy.

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  2. Jessica

    February 1, 2019 at 6:56 am

    These were delicious! I read about them on Bridget’s blog (crumbly cookie), where she raved about them, and am so glad I tried them. White chocolate macadamia nut cookies are a childhood favorite that now disappoints, usually, for me, but the cream cheese and browned butter gave these an extra complexity that made them PERFECT…not so different that they are a different cookie, but just yummier.

    Reply
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