Before Christmas I had bought a bag of chopped macadamia nuts and a bag of white chips, so I did a quick Google search for White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies, found a recipe labeled “The Best White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie Recipe” and said OK! Good enough for me!

And they were. Quite delicious little cookies, they were a big hit with my family at Christmas and an even bigger hit with my coworkers last week. This recipe came out to nearly three dozen cookies using my cookie scoop so there are plenty to share!

Let’s get started.

You’ll need: Butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, eggs, flour, baking soda, white chocolate chips, and macadamia nuts

In a large bowl, add 1 cup of softened butter

1 cup of sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla

and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Using an electric mixer, beat until creamy.

{{At this point there should be pictures of adding eggs, but I forgot to TAKE those pictures, sorry!}}

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a smaller bowl, add 2 1/2 cups flour

and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

Give it a quick stir to combine and then…

Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture…

… until well blended.

Add the white chocolate chips. The recipe calls for 10oz, but I saw no reason not to add the entire 12 oz bag.

And 1 cup of macadamia nuts. (And did you know there is no ‘e’ anywhere in the word macadamia? Cause I keep trying to put one in there, and my spell check keeps yelling at me!)

Stir those in until they are well distributed.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until set.

Let cool for a couple minutes, and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Then enjoy! And for the sake of your hips, please share with others. They’ll love you for it. (Your hips and your friends!)

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Source: Whipped

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
10 ounces white chocolate (chips or bars cut in chunks)
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped into chunks

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 F. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt with electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, beat well. Stir together flour, and the baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture,beating until well blended. Stir in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. (Edges are golden brown and center is set.) Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack to cool completely.

I found this recipe on the back of the bag of toffee chips. Let’s get started!

You’ll need: Flour, brown sugar, peanut butter, shortening, milk, vanilla, egg, baking soda, salt, and chocolate covered toffee chips

Start with 1/2 cup of shortening. Do yourself a favor and buy the handy little sticks of shortening– MUCH easier for recipes. I didn’t have any, and I was trying to use up this little container of Crisco.

Follow the shortening with 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Beat until well blended

Add one egg. Clearly, I broke mine while adding it to the bowl.

Beat in the egg until just blended

In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

and 3/4 teaspoon salt

Stir with a whisk to combine

Gradually add to peanut butter mixture

Continue until all of the flour mixture has been combined with the peanut butter mixture.

Add the bag of toffee chips. The recipe indicates to use part of the bag, and sprinkle the cookies with the remaining chips, but that’s just more work. So I added them all to the dough and called it good.

Go ahead and stir those in.

Drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet

Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes or until set. Don’t over bake them– they’ll be hard as a rock if you do!

Cool for two minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!

Heath Bits Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup Heath milk chocolate toffee bits, divided

Heat oven to 375.
Beat shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add egg; beat just until blended. Combine flour, baking soda, salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Stir in 1 cup toffee bits; reserve remainder for topping.
Drop by heaping teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet; top each with reserved toffee bits. Bake 7 to 8 minutes or until set. Do not overbake. Cool 2 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Cool completely.

Well, in any case, I’m posting them now, so that’s got to count for something! I love this cookie. Peanut butter + chocolate = love. Even though I do occasionally make them at other times of year, I tend to think of these as Christmas cookies. I make them almost every year at this time, and that’s when I remember making them with my mom when I was younger. (My job was to unwrap all the kisses before she got the hot cookies out of the oven. I probably ate as many as made it onto cookies.)

Super simple to make, and really good- I don’t know why I don’t make them more often!

You’ll need: Flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, brown sugar, shortening, peanut butter, egg, milk, vanilla, Hershey Kisses.

In a large bowl, add 1 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

2 Tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine until dough forms. Not quite there yet…

There we go. Shape the dough into balls.

Then roll those dough balls in granulated sugar. I find it easiest to pour some sugar onto a small plate.

Place sugar coated dough balls onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

While the cookies are in the oven, unwrap your Hershey kisses. (Or you can unwrap them before you get started… but I tend to do them as I go as I don’t want to unwrap more kisses than I end up with cookies.)

When the cookies are done, take them out of the oven…

… and IMMEDIATELY press a Hershey Kiss into the center of each cookie. You’ll have to leave the cookies in a single layer wherever you put them when you take them off the pan until they are completely cool. Until they’re cool, the chocolate on the kisses stays melted (I wanted to say melty, but Firefox says that’s not a word) and you’ll just end up smearing the chocolate around everywhere.

Enjoy!

Peanut Blossom Cookies

1 3/4 cup flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. crisco shortening
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 egg
2 T. milk
1 t. vanilla

Combine until dough forms. Shape into balls and roll in sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes at 375. Top each cookie with a kiss. Press firmly.

Take this recipe here. It is in fact a Christmas cookie recipe, and I am posting it a week before Christmas! But don’t be fooled. I am not that prepared. I am still making my grocery lists for this year’s baking. I made THESE particular Christmas cookies LAST year. Probably on the 23rd because that’s the earliest baking I did last Christmas.

So just in case you’re like me and still planning your Christmas baking for this weekend or next week, I present you: Coconut Fudge Cups! These were really good, but they felt really labor intensive. Could be because I was trying to take pictures at the same time, triple checking the recipe, and anticipating many many more hours of baking ahead of me. The resulting cookies were worth it though as I will (hopefully) be making these again this year. I might even go crazy and make more than one batch!

Then again, I might be so tired from grocery store list making that I don’t make anything at all.

You’ll need: Butter or margarine, cream cheese, flour, powdered sugar, unsweetened baking cocoa, vanilla, sugar, coconut, egg, {chocolate chips, whipping cream, green/red food coloring}- optional for garnish

In a large bowl, place 1/4 cup butter or margarine

Add 3 ounces of cream cheese

Beat together with an electric mixer on medium speed.

Add 3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Stir to combine.

Roll the dough into 24 one inch balls and place into ungreased mini muffin cups.

Press the dough into bottom and up the sides of each cup and set aside.

For the filling, combine 2/3 cup of granulated sugar

2/3 cup of coconut

1/3 cup cocoa

2 Tablespoons of softened butter or margarine

and one egg.

Mix until the filling is spreadable.

Spoon about 2 teaspoons of filing into each cup.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes, or until almost no indentation remains when filling is touched lightly. Cool slightly.

Remove to wire cooling rack. If you’d like, you can be done at this point. Or you can continue on and add the garnish.

Put 1/4 cup of coconut into a small resealable bag, and add a few drops of red or green food coloring.

Shake the bag to distribute the color.

Meanwhile, put 1/4 cup chocolate chips into a small microwavable container.

Add 2 teaspoons of whipping cream. Microwave on high for 30 seconds, and stir until smooth.

Frost the top of the coconut cups with the chocolate, and sprinkle on the red or green coconut.

Enjoy!

Coconut Fudge Cups
Source: ? I made these a year ago and can’t find which holiday baking magazine I took them out of… I want to say Betty Crocker, but could be wrong.

Cookie Ingredients
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 (3 oz.) pkg cream cheese, softened.
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 c. powdered sugar
2 T. unsweetened baking cocoa
1/2 t. vanilla

Coconut Fudge Filling
2/3 c. granulated sugar
2/3 c. flaked coconut
1/3 c. unsweetened baking cocoa
2 T. butter or margarine, softened
1 egg

Garnish, if desired
1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips
2 t. whipping cream
1/2 c. flaked coconut
green and red food coloring

Heat oven to 350. In large bowl, beat butter and cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in remaining cookie ingredients.
Shape dough into 24 1-inch balls. Press 1 ball into bottom and up side of each of 24 ungreased mini muffin cups. Mix filling ingredients until spreadable. Spoon about 2 teaspoons filling into each cup.
Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when filling is touched lightly. Cool slightly; carefully remove muffin cups to cooling rack.
In 1 cup microwaveable cup, microwave chocolate chips and whipping cream on high 30 seconds, stir until smooth. Frost tops of fudge cups with chocolate.
In small resealable plastic bag, toss 1/4 cup coconut with red food color, or green food color. Garnish each fudge cup with red or green coconut.

I made these cookies to rave reviews… the recipe is adapted from one I found in a Hershey’s Classics cookbook I have at home. The best thing about these cookies is that you can make them with any kind of baking chip you like. The original recipe called for chocolate chips, I used peanut butter chips. I have plans to make them with mint chips, and with a cherry flavored chip that I found at Walmart this year. That’s another reason I decided to share these cookies this week– even if the chocolate peanut butter combo ain’t your thing, the sky is the limit with these. The specialty swirled chips are great in these cookies, white chocolate chips, I don’t think you could go wrong with any flavor you dig up.

So let’s get started.

Flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, butter or margarine, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, peanut butter chips

Because I like to follow the directions AND dirty every bowl in my house, first I mix together the dry ingredients. In a small bowl, put 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour.

1/3 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon of baking soda

and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Give that a quick stir together and set aside.

In another bowl (this is where my penchant for dirtying every dish I own comes in), put 1 cup (2 sticks) of softened butter or margarine

Add 3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Beat on medium speed until blended. Or if your mixer is like mine, which goes fast and FASTER, the lowest speed you’ve got it good!

Add the eggs

and beat until they’re well mixed into your batter.

Then you can start gradually adding the flour mixture you set aside earlier.

Beat until that’s well incorporated.

Add a little more…

Beat until that’s combined…. it’s fun to watch your cookie dough get more chocolate-y! Keep doing that until you’ve added all of your flour mix. I suppose you could do it all at once, but you’d probably end up with chocolate colored flour all over your kitchen if it’s not there already.

Next, dump in your entire bag of peanut butter chips.

And use a spoon to stir them in to the dough until they’re fairly well distributed.

Finally, drop the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. The recipe called for dropping by rounded teaspoonfuls, but that just sounded teeny to me. I used a tablespoon, and was very generous, and the cookies turned out to be a good size, in my opinion.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Pull them out of the oven while they still look slightly less than done, and they’ll be nice and soft and not overcooked! Let them cool slightly on the pan, then remove. The recipe calls for a wire rack, but I don’t have one. I’ve never had any issues cooling my cookies on wax paper. I may or may not have recently bought a wire rack though, so maybe I’ll find out soon if it really does make a difference!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12 oz. package) peanut butter chips (or chocolate, white chocolate chips, flavor of choice!)
1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Heat oven to 375
Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. add eggs, beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 8-10 minutes or until set. Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Ingredients

I was wanting to cook something other than dinner out of a box, and I just so happened to have all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies on hand. Flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, 2 eggs, butter/margarine, chocolate chips. I would have used real butter, but my margarine was already softened and my butter was in the freezer. And it was getting late enough in the evening that I didn’t want to wait on my butter.

In a small bowl, combine 2 1/4 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt. Picture taken without flash because if you try to take a picture of white ingredients in a white bowl, you just end up with a blinding white blob in the middle of the picture. Set this bowl aside.

In a large mixing bowl, put 1 cup (2 sticks) of softened butter or margarine. Softened is the key word. Do NOT melt it! Turns out, this may have been my mistake so many years ago when I attempted to make these cookies for the first time. Melted butter in chocolate chip cookies will leave you with wide, thin chocolate chip crunchies.

Add to this, 3/4 cup of granulated sugar.

Add 3/4 cup packed brown sugar. Hopefully your brown sugar will be soft. It was at this point that I discovered my brown sugar had dried out, and I had a heck of time carving out 3/4 cup, and an even bigger difficulty trying to get those chunks to break up and mix into my butter and sugar.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Beat until creamy. If you had rock hard brown sugar like I did, this part might take a good amount of time while you make sure all those chunks get broken up. I was starting to fear that someone was going to bite into a cookie and find a quarter sized chunk of hard brown sugar.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating the mixture after each addition.

Next, you’re going to gradually beat in the flour mixture that you set aside earlier. Add it a little bit at a time, and beat it in.

Finally, you’ll dump in 2 cups (the whole 12 oz bag) of chocolate chips. Stir these in… you’ll want to switch to a spoon. I wouldn’t use the hand mixer for this unless you particularly like chocolate chips flung into your eyeball at high speed.

When it’s all mixed together, it’s time to drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheets. And eat a bite of cookie dough with my fingers. And wash my hands because I have a cold and I’m not making Chocolate Chip and Germ Cookies.

How large you drop them is entirely up to you. I took a picture of this particular pan of cookie dough because they were all small and fairly uniform. The first batch into the oven had some gargantuan cookies and some midgets. Slide them into an oven that’s been preheated to 375 degrees F.

Let them bake for 9-11 minutes, until they are golden brown. I like to take cookies out of the oven when they look like they could cook for another minute or two. They’ll continue to firm up a little bit on the pan, and I like my cookies on the softer side. After you remove them from the oven, let them sit on the pan for a couple minutes to cool.

The recipe calls for cooling the cookies completely on a wire rack, but unfortunately I don’t have one of those. So I make do with wax paper on the counter top. (And maybe put wire racks on my birthday wish-list. Never mind the fact that it’s not until August.)

My boss has eaten three of these cookies now, and people are surfacing from the depths of the building looking for some, so I’d say they turned out pretty well. Phew! The curse of the chocolate chip crunchies has been cured!

The Recipe
Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

You’ll need oatmeal, milk, sugar, cocoa, butter or margarine, peanut butter and salt.

In a saucepan, combine 1 stick margarine or butter… As you can see, I really need new pans.

1/2 cup milk…

1/2 cup cocoa…

2 cups of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt whose picture didn’t turn out.

Get it all stirred up together… it might take a minute if you’re waiting on your butter to melt.

Bring to a boil, and cook for one minute. Incidentally, it is hard to get a picture of a boiling pot… all you get is steam!

Remove from the heat. You can’t tell, but in this picture I’ve just added 1/2 cup of peanut butter.

Add 3 cups of oatmeal.

Stir until well-combined. You can usually tell right away if you’ve done it right because it will be starting to thicken up as you stir it.

Drop spoonfuls onto wax paper. Let the cookies cool until they are set. Or some of them anyways. Feel free to pick up the still warm, half-set cookies and enjoy them! And don’t stress out too much if the cookies don’t set… the “goop” still tastes wonderful when scraped off the wax paper with a spoon. Ask me how I know.

The Recipe
No Bake Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir together, and bring to a boil. Cook for one minute. Add in

1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups oatmeal

Stir well to combine. Drop spoonfuls onto wax paper and let cool until set. Enjoy!

The Recipe
Cookie Ingredients:

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Filling Ingredients:

1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

I did a lousy job of taking pictures to document these cookies, but I’ll give it a shot. First you heat your oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, combine all of the cookie ingredients except for the flour and baking power.

Beat at medium speed until creamy. Reduce speed to low; add flour and baking powder. Beat until well mixed.

Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Make indentation in each cookie with thumb; rotate thumb to hollow out slightly.

Combine all filling ingredients in small bowl;

fill each cookie with 1 rounded teaspoon filling.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets.

The Verdict
Everyone loved them! They certainly do not make as many cookies as the recipe says (it says yields 3 dozen, but I was probably closer to 2 dozen). They were impossibly easy to make, and I’ll definitely make them again. More than one person wanted the recipe too. So this is definitely going in the file of “to be made again.” Already in that file for me are my lasagna, and a white chicken parmesan I made for Mother’s Day (and for Father’s Day too, cause I’m a cheater like that).