These white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are soft-baked style with extra chewy centers. Melted butter maintains a delicious buttery flavor while an extra egg yolk adds chewiness. They’re absolutely PACKED with white chocolate and salted macadamia nuts.
Everything Old is New Again!
My website’s archives are filled with over 1,000 recipes. Some of my earlier recipes are total hidden gems, but there are others that I’ve felt needed some work. I’ve been working behind the scenes updating older recipes as I find necessary. Most notable updates: peanut butter cupcakes, monkey bread, and yellow cupcakes.
Today’s white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are part of this project. I craved a thicker cookie with softer, chewier centers and a distinct buttery flavor. There wasn’t much in this recipe that really needed to change, so I just made a couple minor tweaks.
They’re now perfect.
Video Tutorial
These are the BEST White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
And here’s why:
- Major chunksโlots of nuts and white chocolate
- Classic comforting flavors
- Extra buttery
- Soft-baked style
- Chewy centers
- Slightly crisp edges
- Easy to freeze
Re-Testing This Recipe
This recipe is a cross between my coconut macadamia nut cookies and my chewy chocolate chip cookies. Like the original recipe first published in 2012, I use melted butter instead of softened butter. I love using melted butter in cookies because it produces an extra buttery flavor as well as a chewier texture. However, it’s not as simple as swapping melted butter for softened butter. (Of course it’s not. It’s BAKING! So particular!)
You see, melted butterโa liquidโcreates spread. If there isn’t enough flour to absorb the added liquid, the cookies will spread all over the baking sheet. On the other hand, if there’s excess flour, the cookies will taste dry. Finding the balance between too wet and too dry is a total roll of the dice! Speaking of dry ingredients, I add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch here. This ingredient adds a little extra softness. I don’t add cornstarch when making the coconut macadamia nut cookies because the coconut acts as a really soft dry ingredient, so cornstarch just isn’t necessary there.
The original recipe also used an extra egg yolk. I love this addition! See my chewy chocolate chip cookies if you’re curious about it. Basically, an extra egg yolk = extra richness and extra chew. Both good things.
Two final changes: I add a little more baking soda for additional volume because the original cookies typically over-spread. I also switch the amounts of sugar. Here we use an equal amount of granulated sugar and brown sugar. In addition to sweetening, brown sugar creates a soft and more flavorful cookie and granulated sugar creates spread. Balancing them helps produce a chewy, yet crispy edge cookie.
Best Macadamia Nuts to Use
I LOVE using salted dry-roasted macadamia nuts in white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. The roasted salty flavor pairs beautifully with the extra sweet white chocolate morselsโyou won’t regret it!
3 Cookie Tips to Improve Your Next Batch
- Spoon & Level the Flour:ย The amount of flour makes or breaks a cookie recipeโliterally. Spoon and levelย that flour or, better yet,ย weigh your flour.
- Chill the Cookie Dough: Chilling the cookie dough, especially since we’re using melted butter, is an imperative step in this recipe. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. Youโll have thicker, sturdier, and more solid cookies.
- Bake 1 Batch at a Time: You get the best possible results when the oven only concentrates on 1 batch at a time. If you need to bake more than one batch at a time, rotate the baking sheets from the top rack to bottom rack a couple times through the baking process to encourage even browning. And turn the sheets around as well. Ovens have hot spots!
If you can’t get enough of sweet white chocolate, try my white chocolate brownies and white chocolate peanut butter cookies next!
Print
Super-Chunk White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: 30 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are soft-baked style with extra chewy centers. They’re absolutely PACKED with white chocolate morsels and salted macadamia nuts. Chilling the cookie dough is imperative, so set aside at least 2 hours.
Ingredients
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons (265g)ย all-purpose flourย (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, melted + slightly cooled
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g)ย granulated sugar
- 1 largeย eggย + 1ย egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 heaping cup (210g) white chocolate chips*
- 1 cup (120g) roughly chopped macadamia nuts*
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- Whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract together until combined. Pour into dry ingredients and mix everything together with a silicone spatula until completely combined. Fold in the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. (You can use a mixer for this step if needed.)
- Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 4 days. If chilling for longer than 2 hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 20-30ย minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350ยฐF (177ยฐC). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll cookie dough into balls, about 1-1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie (I like to use this medium cookie scoop), and arrange 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look soft.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula | Baking Sheets |ย Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper |ย Medium Cookie Scoopย |ย Cooling Rack
- White Chocolate Chips: I usually use closer to 1 and 1/4 cups white chocolate chips, about 210g. For looks, you can press a few extra chips into the tops of the warm cookies when they come out of the oven.
- Macadamia Nuts: I used salted dry-roasted macadamia nuts. You can use unsalted, raw, and/or whichever macadamia nuts you love most. Salted dry-roasted adds incredible flavor though.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
I loved this! I did tweak a tiny bit though hehe.
I used 1/3 cup gran. sugar, 1/3 cup brown sugar, and 1/3 cup coconut (because the coconut sugar can be a bit much). I added a little bit of coconut milk, and tossed the nuts and chocolate in the blender so they would distribute evenly. And they’re absolutely devinnee, best batch I’ve made yet!
These are dangerously delicious! Made them tonight and my husband and I ate a dozen between us! TT
These are soooooooo good! I was a bit skeptical about the amount of add-ins, but it was perfect!