The Kitchen Catwalk: White Chocolate Chip

White Chocolate Chip & Cashew Cookies

Cookies are the perfect make-ahead breakfast! And, if you eat them by themselves, you’ll be ready for breakfast again about two hours later (if you can pick your face up from your desktop). When paired with something that furnishes nutrients they may lack you have “a balanced breakfast” and all day to burn the alleged extra calories. Catch me in the evening and I’ll tell you why that’s also the ideal time to eat cookies.

Here’s the recipe for my breakfast du jour:

2 cups of butter (very FIRM)

3 cups granulated sugar

2 LG eggs plus the white of a third

4 ½ cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

12 oz white chocolate chips

1 cup finely chopped nuts – See "nut notes" below

Cute little dough balls.

This is a variation of the classic chocolate chip cookie recipe featured in my last post. You’ll notice that the brown sugar is ousted in this one.

No brown sugar for these.

The lack of molasses from brown sugar makes the extra egg white essential - even with big eggs. If you don’t have LG or XL eggs then add two whites.

Pretty white chips meet nice stiff dough.

The Directions - are the same as the ones for the regular chocolate chip cookies (see March 6^th), except that these take a little longer to bake. A full 15 minutes. Method is still important if you want to avoid white chocolate pancakes. For complete directions on how to make perfect Ku-Ki-Do see : http://kitchencatwalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/cookie-methodology-part-1-great-ku-ki.html

Nut Notes:

I used to always make these with honey-roasted slivered almonds and they are delicious that way, but the cookies end up very sweet – dare I say too sweet – and sometimes the almonds are hard to find.
In December, Ric and I came back from Hawaii with macadamia nuts, which are supposed to be the thing for white chocolate chip cookies. After trying them, I’m not convinced.
Last night, after a cabinet cleaning expedition I decided to try a different angle with the remnant of salted cashews from one of those Costco sized plastic jars. BINGO! I think I’ve hit on my nut of choice. The salty nuts were great with the extra sweetness of white chocolate and cashews are just a delicious nut. What could be better?