White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
These are seriously the BEST White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies. Using a few secret ingredients, this recipe is an elevated version of a classic. They’re the perfect balance of salty and sweet with a rich, soft, and chewy texture. This recipe is also no-chill, can be mixed by hand, and can be frozen to keep for months on end!
What is the secret to delicious white chocolate macadamia nut cookies?
These cookies taste like they came straight from a bakery, mainly because they’re made up ingredients that bakeries use to make their treats taste SO special. They’re rich, flavorful, and have multiple layers of sweetness and saltiness with the perfect textures in all the right places. Each cookie is LOADED with their signature mix-ins, giving you white chocolate and macadamia nut in every single bite.
So what’s the secret?
European Style Butter (AKA Cultured Butter)
If you’ve never baked with European style butter before, prepare to have your mind blown. Here’s the magic – when making butter, fresh cream is churned to separate the fat solids. Typical butter stops here, but European style butter adds bacterial cultures to the churned cream. Then, it rests for a few days to ferment and develop a rich flavor. The end result is a creamy and flavorful butter that makes any dessert 10x better.
You can also compare it to a fine wine, as aged wine has a much more complex flavor. It’s also the same reason why European style butter is a bit more expensive. That’s why I like to splurge on the butter and save in other areas, like using basic all-purpose flour and store-brand white chocolate chips and nuts. You won’t notice a drastic difference in using cheaper alternatives to the other ingredients, but you WILL notice a difference when using a basic butter over European style butter.
The fastest way to cool brown butter
Since White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies usually have a pretty basic flavor, I wanted to bump it up a bit by browning the butter. But now that we know European style butter already as so much flavor on its own, it only needed a little bit of extra help. That’s why I only brown half of the butter in this recipe.
Not only does it give you that little boost of added toffee flavor, but it also speeds up the entire browning process. Once half the butter is browned, it’s poured on top of the other half of butter. When the hot brown butter is mixed with the chilled butter, it speeds up the cooling process. You never want to make cookies with hot butter as it will dissolve the sugar too rapidly, so you usually have to wait for it cool. But since we’re combining hot butter with cold butter, it melts and cools down within about 5 minutes.
If you want to learn more about brown butter and why it’s such an amazing flavor enhancer to keep in your baking arsenal, check out my full post on how to brown butter.
Tips for baking the best white chocolate macadamia nut cookies
- Properly measure the flour – I say this in every post, and for good reason. If there’s too much flour, the cookies will turn out dry and will not spread properly. If you can, measure the flour with a food scale. Otherwise, gently spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level if off with a flat edge. If you scoop directly into the flour container, it packs it down into the cup which could leave you with 1/4 cup or more of added flour.
- Really mix the eggs – This recipe makes a very soft dough so this step is important. Thoroughly mixing in the eggs releases its emulsifying powers. By agitating the eggs, it creates a strong bond in the dough between the oil and liquid components. This results in a sturdy cookie that won’t spread too thin.
- Don’t over mix – On the other hand, it’s very easy to over mix this dough as there are a ton of chocolate chips and nuts to distribute throughout it. To prevent this from happening, add in the chocolate and nuts just before the flour is fully combined. Then, fold in the mix ins just until they’re well distributed. Over mixing can lead to a tough cookie, so be careful during the last few steps in making this dough.
- Rest the dough – But just for 5 minutes! This short time allows the liquid butter to really absorb the dry ingredients in the dough. It will thicken just enough to bake the most perfect white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies FAQs
You technically can, but European style butter really MAKES this recipe. It contains a higher percentage of butterfat compared to regular butter, so it really boosts the overall flavor and texture of these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.
This could be due to a few things, so I recommending reading my baking tips above to help troubleshoot. It could either be that too much flour was used or the dough was over mixed.
I highly recommend sticking with the roasted salted macadamia nuts as these cookies were built around that salty flavor. But if you can’t find them, you can use plain macadamia nuts. I would then recommend doubling the salt content in these cookies (1/2 teaspoon) and don’t skip the flaky sea salt on top.
Yes, you can freeze any leftover dough and it will keep for up to 3 months. Simply scoop and form your dough balls and place them into a freezer safe storage bag. Then just add about 5 minutes to the bake time.
Yes! This will product a thicker softer cookie. Scoop the dough balls into a container or bag and chill overnight or up to 3 days in the fridge. Then add 1-2 extra minutes to the bake time.
You can use whatever white chocolate chips you like. I don’t find there to be a drastic variation between different brands of white chocolate chips, or at least not until you get into the REALLY good stuff that you can only order online or buy in specialty shops. Since we’re splurging on the European style butter, you can opt for basic store-brand white chocolate chips. But if you I had to choose, I prefer Ghirardelli white chocolate chips or the chocolate chips I linked in the recipe below.
I haven’t tested it, but you can try swapping the flour with the same weight in Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten free baking flour. I say weight because measuring for volume (aka cups) between regular and gluten free flour can be tricky. Gluten free flour is more dense, so it’s very easy to use way too much when measuring with cups. If you don’t have a food scale to weigh out your flour, fluff up the flour and then carefully spoon it into your measuring cup.
For more cookie recipes, check out my:
- Thin Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Chip Miso Cookies
- Soft Lofthouse Frosted Sugar Cookies
- Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies
- BEST M&M Cookie Recipe
Make sure to tag me @butternutbakery on Instagram and comment below if you make these White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies. To pin this recipe and save it for later, you can use the button on the recipe card or on any of the photos above. Happy baking!
Watch how to make these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies:
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: 19 cookies
Description
These are the BEST white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. They’re perfectly soft and chewy with rich flavor using browned European style butter, roasted and salted macadamia nuts, and sweet and creamy white chocolate chips.
Ingredients
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- 1 cup (220g) unsalted European style butter*, divided
- 1/2 cup (105g) light brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 2 cups (256g) all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 3/4 cup (290g) white chocolate chips, plus more for topping
- 1 cup (125g) dry roasted salted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
- Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice both sticks of butter. Place one stick into a medium saucepan and one stick into a large mixing bowl.
- Place the saucepan over medium heat and melt the butter. Continue to heat and stir until it goes from melted, to loud and bubbly, to quiet and foamy. At this final stage, the butter will brown into a golden amber color.
- Pour the hot brown butter over the sliced butter inside the mixing bowl. Stir the two together to both melt the solid butter and cool the browned butter.
- If you have not done so yet, take this time to chop up the macadamia nuts.
- Now to the bowl of brown butter, whisk in the sugars
- Then whisk in the eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice. Vigorously whisk until the mixture lightens in color and begins to thicken.
- Whisk in the salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
- Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the flour. Right before the flour is fully mixed in to the dough, fold in the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts to bring everything together.
- Allow the dough to sit for about 5 minutes. This gives the butter a chance to really absorb that flour which will thicken the dough.
- Using a large cookie scoop (3 tbsp worth), scoop 3-4 cookies onto the baking sheet. Top with a few extra chocolate chips if desired.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes or until the edges are golden and the center appears pale, puffed, and slightly underdone.
- Top the warm cookies with a light sprinkle of sea salt of desired. Transfer to a cooling rack. For the best texture and flavor, enjoy when the cookies are still warm!
Equipment
Buy Now → Notes
BUTTER – I highly recommend using European style butter(also known as cultured butter) as it contains a higher percentage of butterfat compared to regular unsalted butter. This provides SO much more flavor and richness to these cookies. If you can’t get your hands on some, you can get away with using regular unsalted butter.
FREEZING – The dough will last up to 3 months in the freezer. To freeze the dough, scoop and shape your dough balls and place them into a freezer storage bag. When you’re ready to bake, you have one of two options. 1. Thaw the cookie dough for 1 hour before baking, following the same instructions in this recipe. 2. Bake right away at 340F for 15-18 minutes. Both cookies will not spread as much, but thawing will spread a bit more than frozen. Either way, the cookies turn out just as delicious!
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
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Meet Jenna
I’m the creator, baker, and photographer behind Butternut Bakery. Here I share desserts for every diet because I believe everyone should have a chance to indulge!
I didn’t leave a rating because these are baking as I write this! I’m confused because several reviews mentioned cinnamon in these cookies, yet I didn’t see cinnamon in the ingredient list. Can you clarify? Thanks!
I’m curious about the lemon juice. Is it in there for flavor, or does it help out the structure of the cookie? Thank you and I’m looking forward to making these soon.
I used the Bobs Red Mill GF flour and it was arguably better than the AP Flour! The cookies were a lot more chewy with crispy edges. I definitely recommend the scoop the flour into the measuring cup method!
Just perfect and delicious! I also love your chocolate chip cookie recipe too! Seriously the best!!
I needed a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie recipe to make for a special person. I am not a WCMN cookie person. Since I have replaced all my cookie recipes from butternutbakery with wonderful reviews, I expect the same with these. This was also my first time to brown butter. I enjoy trying new techniques. Keep the wonderful recipes coming. ❤️
These look so yummy! Would it be alright to use white chocolate baking bars instead of the chips?
These were very delicious! Everyone loved them even with the cinnamon, which you don’t find common in macadamia nut cookies. It actually made the cookie even better in my opinion! This is definitely one my new favorite cookies!
These cookies are insanely delicious. Gooey, cinnamon-y, crispy edges with soft inside. Amazing!
Amazing cookies !!! Took these to my tennis match this week. Let’s just say, they were much better than my match play ! Ha ! Everyone LOVED them. These are sooooo good ! I made the dough the night before and baked the next day. My friend took a couple home to her family and she texted me to say that her young daughter said that they tasted like heaven ! Thanks for sharing !
I made this cookies today, and I have had to hide them as my husband has already had two. lol These cookies are so good. Cooking the butter was a game changer. They have a butterscotch flavour to them, and it takes the cookies to the next level. Thank you for including weight measurements as that is the best way to get precise measurements. Love your blog, and instagram account.