macadamia and caramelised white chocolate chunk cookies

macadamia and caramelised white chocolate chunk cookies

• 22 Jul 2024

I bake a batch of cookies every few weeks for my own personal consumption, so when the biscuit tin starts looking a bit empty, I start searching for what to make next. The biscuits, however, don't always make it in front of my camera. 

A few months ago, Delicious magazine devoted a feature to Natalie Paull and her latest cookbook, Beatrix Bakes: Another Slice. I ordered the book from the library and after leafing through a few pages, I went out and purchased my own copy. There were just too many recipes I wanted to make. So far, I've made the pistachio and lemon buns and for my second bake I whipped up a batch of her Macadamia and white chocolate chonky chip cookies. No doubt there will be more Natalie Paull bakes to follow.

Natalie always has a section in her recipes known as Adaptrix, where you can make changes to the recipe. Well, I adapted the hell out of the recipe to make it my own. Whilst I do like an after-dinner treat served with my cup of tea, a 165g cookie is way too much for me so I made the cookies a third of the size. I'm a big fan of caramelised white chocolate so I swapped that for regular white chocolate, and I reduced the quantity a bit because white chocolate can be a bit too sweet for me.

Here's the recipe for you, which was adapted from here. I made a half batch of the recipe which made twelve 56g cookies rather than the nine whopping 165g cookies the original recipe made. If you do make the 165g cookies, then double the bake time. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Macadamia and caramelised white chocolate chunk cookies - makes 12 cookies
Ingredients 
165g raw whole macadamias
80g unsalted butter, cold and diced
60g light muscovado (or brown) sugar
60g raw sugar
7g vanilla bean paste
165g plain flour
1 slightly heaped ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb soda
½ tsp fine salt 
115g chopped white or caramelised white chocolate
50g egg (approx. 1 egg), fridge cold
Cooking oil spray
Sea salt flakes, to sprinkle

Method
Heat the oven to 150°C, conventional. Chop each macadamia in half. (If you bought macadamia halves, skip to the toasting.) Place on a shallow baking tray and toast in the oven for around 30-40 minutes until the colour of pale honey. Low and slow toasting is imperative with macadamias, given their high oil content. I like the toasted nuts to match the dough colour for maximum cookie aesthetic. Cool the nuts quickly in the fridge.

Place the cold butter, sugars and vanilla in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on speed 2 (above low) for about 5 minutes, until the mix looks like sugary mash – no need to go to pale and fluffy. Scrape the sides down once during this process. I keep this base mix cold and mashed rather than warmer and fluffier so my cookie dough texture is closed and dense rather than porous with air. They will also spread less when baked.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt into a small bowl and set aside. Weigh the caramelised chocolate chunks with the cooled chopped nuts and set aside.

Keeping on speed 2 (above low), add the egg to the butter mix in one go and beat for 5 minutes, scraping side of bowl once or twice during this stage. The butter/sugar/egg mix will be brown with a wet porridge consistency.

Reduce to speed 1 (low), then add the dry ingredients and mix just until no flour is visible. Tip the chocolate and nuts in and mix until only just incorporated. Take the bowl off the mixer, scrape the dough off the paddle and tip the dough onto your work surface. Give the dough a thorough mix so any buttery seams from the bottom can be mixed in well. Buttery seams can cause funny-spreading cookies. Good to eat, just not a nice round cookie.

Lightly grease a baking tray with cooking oil spray. Weigh 12 balls of dough to 56g each, or about 2 tbs of dough.

Roll each ball gently but don’t compact the dough – it should be a lumpy sphere. Place closely together on the tray. I like to cover and chill for a minimum of 12 hours, but you can also bake these straight away. The overnight hydrate/rest makes a better textured (a little less spread, more hump and no external greasy feel post-bake) cookie, but you can bake these straight away, too but they will take a little less time to cook, 9-10 minutes.

When you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Spray a flat baking tray with cooking oil and line with baking paper. Arrange the dough balls on the tray, spacing them a roomy 5-7cm apart, then sprinkle the tops with salt flakes (totally optional). Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cookies have settled with a mild dome, have a crisp butterscotch-coloured upper crust and soft sides, but are squidgy just under the top crust. You can take an internal temperature – 75°C will give you doughy interior perfection.

Cool the baked cookies on the tray for 10-15 minutes for optimal eating – the warmest, stickiest, softest cookie dough joy! When the cookie cools completely, it’s also good, just not GOOD good.

Well, I can attest that these are very good cookies, eaten while still a little warm from the oven. A crunchy exterior and a caramelly slightly soft interior, studded with toasted macadamias. What's not to love?

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian