Classic White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Get ready to indulge in the ultimate sweet, salty, nutty treat with these irresistible white chocolate macadamia nut cookies! Made with butter and brown sugar, and loaded with chunks of creamy white chocolate and roasted macadamia nuts, these cookies are perfect for satisfying your sweet tooth cravings (with a hint of salt for balance). Whether you’re a seasoned baker or a beginner in the kitchen, this easy-to-follow recipe is bound to become a household favorite!

White chocolate macadamia nut cookies cookies were, hands down, the most exotic cookie of the 90’s.  I was lucky enough to find this elite delicacy on the ground floor of the Westside Pavilion Mall in West Los Angeles at a little shop called Mrs. Fields.  You could smell Miss Ma’am’s cookies a quarter of a mall mile away and there was no better way to spend hard-earned allowance money. My friends at the time were secretly buying thong underwear from Wet Seal they’d take home and hide from their parents but me?  I had planted myself in line for my favorite cookies.  Obviously my priorities were locked in early.  I was in it for the sweet white chocolate, buttery macadamia nuts and chewy centers.

I’ve made these nostalgic cookies more than a dozen times over the years and, if I’m being honest, there’s not much nuance.  These are pretty dang sweet cookies. I’ve recently settled into my favorite iteration of these cookies thus far.  They’re heavy on the brown sugar with a subtle hint of warming spices.  They’re elevated just slightly from their mall days but still firmly planted, as they should be, at the in the 90’s.

Here’s our best white chocolate cookie recipe, friends! Let’s bake!

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make these classic White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies:

•  all-purpose flour

•  brown sugar (light brown sugar for a subtle caramel flavor or dark brown sugar for a more rich caramel flavor)

If you only have granulated sugar, here’s how to turn it into brown sugar with a tablespoon of molasses.

•  baking soda

•  sea salt or kosher salt

•  ground cinnamon and ground ginger

•  vanilla bean extract or vanilla bean paste

•  unsalted butter, at room temperature

•  large eggs

•  white chocolate chips or chunks or morsels

•  dry-roasted macadamia nuts

As all good cookies start, we’ll cream together copious amounts of brown sugar and softened butter in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer. Years back, in an advanced baking technique class, my instructor ran up my mixer as I was making cookie dough, instantly turned down the mixer speed, looked at me and said “low and slow.” Low speed, slow speed as to not incorporate too much air into the cookie batter.

While the butter creams, whisk together the dry ingredients.  I add just the faintest hint of ground cinnamon and ginger. I think the spice adds a nice balance to the sweetness of the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

Two things that make this recipe unique: adding just an egg yolk instead of an entire second egg and splurging with a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl. Stir in the white chocolate chips and toasty, coarsely chopped macadamia nuts. The batter will be thick and stiff. We’re making a sturdy cookie.

I like to wrap the dough and refrigerate it for at least hour.  The chill time gives the cookie dough an opportunity to hydrate the flour and firm the butter, making for a cookie that sits up nice and tall on the baking sheet.

If you don’t have the time and patience to rest your cookie dough, I get you. You can bake these straight away, they may just spread a bit more than if you’d chilled them.

Either way, scoop cookie dough onto a parchment paper lined baking pan and bake until golden around the edges.

Pssstt: the cookie dough balls also freeze well to please your future self.

After a bake in the oven, finish each cookie with a sprinkle of sea salt to balance the sweetness of white chocolate.  Allow to cool on racks until folks start flocking to the kitchen.

If you like chewy cookies with a crisp edge, this is your ideal cookie just slightly under baked.

Serve in heaps, with milk.  See if anyone notices the hint of ginger because it’s a delight!  Store any leftover cookies (pffft) in an airtight container.

If you need more inspiration, here are other chocolate chip cookies I love:

White Chocolate Cappuccino Cookies

Grapefruit and White Chocolate Cookies

Browned Butter White Chocolate Cookies (these ones have cream cheese in the dough!)

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