Best-Ever White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Best-Ever White Chocolate Macadamia Nut CookiesI know I say this every time I post a new cookie recipe, but…

BEST. COOKIE. EVER. 

What can I say, I’m a cookie enthusiast. I don’t think I could possibly ever choose a favorite. In the peanut butter arena, I have my Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. If I’m in the go-big-or-go-home mentality, nothing cuts it like my Deep Dish Caramel-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. When I’m in Hawaii and feeling the aloha spirit? THESE. These are my cookies of choice.

Best-Ever White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Speaking of Hawaii, I’m on my way there today! I’ll be reaching the Big Island by noon and meeting up with Kyle and his family for some relaxation, good food, and beach time. They’ve already been there for a few days, so I’m excited to finally arrive and start my vacation! I’m flying in between my organic chemistry labs, so it’s going to be a relatively short stay since I can’t miss the one I have this upcoming week. It’s okay, though, because these cookies are just the medium I need between Hawaii and Santa Barbara, and being able to have one with my morning coffee when I’m back home will fill the empty Hawaii-void I’ll be feeling.

So more about why these cookies are so freakin’ amazing. They have a nice small crunchy top layer that tops a soft and perfectly sweet inside that pratically melts in your mouth. And biiiiiggg chunks of macadamia nut and little love nuggets (aka white chocolate chips) in every bite. The base cookie recipe is from Pretty Simple Sweet and I don’t think I’m ever going to use another recipe. It’s that good! When I took them out of the oven and took my first bite, my face immediately lit up and I started oozing rainbows and unicorns.

I don’t even know how to describe them. They’re just perfect <3. 

Best-Ever White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

 

 

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

So melt-in-your-mouth peanut butter goodness like whhaaaaaat.

There are a couple of things I want to say about this. First off, EASY. Almost stupidly easy. One bowl, no flour, no baking powder. Just throw your ingredients into a mixer or hand-mix and all of a sudden you have a delicious bowl of cookie dough that tastes like the filling of a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. And no, I’m not kidding. Secondly, gluten free. I’m not claiming to know much about baking/eating without gluten, but holy heck, you won’t miss it at all. I know a lot of GF treats sometimes leave a little to be desired, but these are incredibly soft and bursting with peanut butter and chocolate flavor that go perfectly with a glass of milk.

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

This summer has been the summer of cookies. Which also lends itself to being the summer of buckets of sugar and five tons of butter. Which also also should lend to me spending a good amount of time running or hitting up the gym, but my exercise lately has been reduced to beating together my butter and sugar. Also I’m lying because I have a Kitchenaid. Chewing counts as working out, right?

What was I saying again?

OH YEA. It’s the summer of cookies! From my No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites to my Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies (<—I die. SO good), it’s been a good season for sweets and these peanut butter bites are no exception. They are little pillows of fluffy goodness and are chock full of melty chocolate chips and crunchy pieces of crushed peanuts. I actually had to make two seperate batches of these before I was able to snap some photos of them since they magically dissapeared overnight. Apart from me being a little irritated at having to have to heat up the house a little with the oven, it meant that I could make some more of the best peanut butter cookie dough ever and enjoy it with a triple shot latte that Kyle brought me. The BEST. Is anyone like that as well? I usually make myself so sick off of stuffing my face with cookie dough that when the final product comes out, I’m left lying on the ground in a (magnificent) sugar coma.

And I’m okay with that.

Easy Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies 5

This recipe is adapted from the lovely people at Cooking Light!

 

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies!

So this is me right now. I’m sitting at our dining table in our gorgeously open and light living room. The glass door is open. You can hear the sound of waves crashing softly in the background. Palm trees blowing in the wind. All I can see is a huge expanse of ocean. Well, that and our neighbors playing beer pong in their backyard.

Brb. I’ll show you.

View from Apartment

To say the least, it can all get a little distracting 😯 .

I’m blaming my lack of ability to concentrate on living in such a gorgeous place. I have miles more free time now that it’s summer, but I find myself not being all that productive. Back when I was sleeping 3-5 hours a night for weeks at a time and living in the library, I had grand plans of spending all my free-time blogging, working on my freelance work, exploring new places in Santa Barbara, etc. Instead all I want to do is sit outside and watch the waves roll back and forth with a cup of coffee and a cookie (or 12).

Specifically these cookies.

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies

You see, the deliciousness of a cookie directly correlates to the amount of goodies and add-ins you can stuff into it. It’s proven by a complex math derivative that involved copious amounts of physics, or something.

Here, let me try to explain it in this helpful diagram.

Complicated Graph CookiesAhhhhh yes… I see. Intriguing.

*twiddles mustache thoughtfully*.

If you carefully study the diagram, you can easily see the relationship to the piles of added cookies and cream chunks and white chocolate chips in these Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies to their deliciousness. I mean, if the name has the word “cookies” in it twice, it must be twice as good, right?!

Like their name suggests, these babies are loaded fully loaded with yumminess and have a great chewy crust but soft middle. They’re fantastically sweet and go better with a cup of coffee than any other cookie I’ve ever had, and that, my friends, is saying something.

Chunky Cookies and Cream Cookies!!

So grab yourself a mug of liquid energy, a cookie straight out of the oven, and an oceanside view like me and you’re ready to start your morning off right.

Life is good.

Cookie base adapted from The Kitchen Magpie

 

Dark Chocolate Strawberry Shortbread Cookies

Chocolate covered strawberries in cookie form! So delicious and easy!

So THIS is my ideal Friday morning.

Wake up slow. Brew some coffee.  Get some cookie dough going (most of which will never see the oven). Enjoy some blog reading while my cookies are baking away. Alternate sips with bites because coffee+a little sweetness = my personal heaven.

Sometimes it’s worth skipping your 8 a.m lecture for a lazy morning.

PicMonkey Collage

Can I marry my Tiffany Blue KitchenAid Mixer?

When I was younger, I used to go to the local ice skating rink with my mom and sister when the summer heat was in full blast. I remember always envying those cute little skating outfits that they had on sale and my 8 year old self seriously contemplated becoming a professional ice skater so I could twirl around in them. Unfortunately, my mom made a rule that my skating career had to last more than a year before I was allowed to get one, and that was just too big of a commitment. So anyways, we would skate for an hour or so before heading off of the ice to take a break and grab a snack. They had a couple of vending machines next to the wooden benches that were filled with your standard candy and chips, but my mind was always made up before I even put my coins in. I wanted cookies! And not just any cookies, those Knott’s Berry Farm Raspberry Shortbread Cookies. With a hot chocolate in hand, I would nibble my way around the outside edges till that last glorious bite remained. 

Chocolate covered strawberries in cookie form! So delicious and easy!

Now that the weather has been reaching the mid-90s lately, I’ve been craving those cookies! My mind just can’t seem to get them out of my head, but I’ve checked my local grocery store and womp womp womp, I couldn’t find one package. I cried for a few hours, then realized that I’m a food blogger and I could probably make them myself. Hooray! 

Chocolate covered strawberries in cookie form! So delicious and easy!

These are basically the grownup version of those tasty shortbread cookies. You get a buttery and perfectly sweet shortbread base that you then smother with strawberry jam and a dark chocolate drizzle. And guess what! You can cover the whole top with the good stuff, so no outside nibbling is required to get the perfect bite. I guess that’s what being a grownup means- no one can dictate how you eat your cookies! 

I baked these in the morning before leaving for another lecture, and midday I got this text from my housemate, Kelty. When I got back, there were only 10 left out of the 25+ that I had made. I’ll take that as a success! 

image-1DSC_2183To cut the cookies, I used the smallest biscuit cutter from the Norpro Scallop Biscuit/Cookie Cutter pack I ordered a few weeks back. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, just roll the dough into a small ball before flattening it to the right size with your hand.

The base shortbread layer comes from the lovely Ina Garten