Chewy White Chocolate & Roasted Almond Cookies
with crispy outsides, chewy insides, crunchy almonds, and shards of white chocolate throughout
Hi all x
In the kitchen over the past few weeks, I have been testing cookies. I love chocolate chip cookies. I love them with a chewy centre, crinkled edges, and large melty pockets of chocolate, still warm.
After delving deep into the world of cookie science and trying more than a few times to strike the right balance of these key markers, I’ve made what I think is a very good cookie that serves as a beautiful canvas for white chocolate and roasted almonds (but which would be equally delicious with dark or milk chocolate). For these, I use a bar of chocolate chopped into shards, which melt out into nice puddles and set into large fragments throughout the chewy cookies. This recipe asks you to let the dough rest for a day in the fridge, and I promise you it’s worth it.
As usual, the recipe for these cookies is below but for some helpful tips and insights to ensure that your cookies are perfect, scroll to the bottom.
Ingredients:
420g all-purpose (plain) flourÂ
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
240g unsalted butter, melted
140g white sugar
250g light brown sugar
2 large eggsÂ
200g white chocolate, roughly chopped
100g roasted almonds, roughly chopped
Instructions:
Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. In a second bowl, whisk together the butter and both sugars, then whisk in the eggs one at a time until homogeneous.
Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sugar-butter mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined and only a few dry patches remain, then fold through the chopped white chocolate and roasted almonds. Transfer the dough to a container or bowl for storing and let it rest in the fridge for 24 hours.
The next day, preheat your oven to 350°F/180°C. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper or a silicone baking mats and shape the dough into 2 tbsp-sized balls. Arrange the balls on your trays with at least 3 inches between each one —4 to 5 balls per tray is ideal to prevent them from spreading into each other— then bake for 11-13 minutes until golden brown and puffed up. Let the cookies cool (slightly) then enjoy.
As with cakes, over-working cookie dough can lead to dense and tough cookies because too much mixing causes an overly strong gluten network to develop. When making your dough, stir or mix it until the flour is just barely incorporated. It’s best to add in the almonds and white chocolate before the flour is fully incorporated to avoid unnecessary over-mixing.
If your sugar is clumping at all, pass it through a sieve to break up the clumps before whisking it with the butter to ensure that it is evenly distributed.
Adding hand-chopped chocolate or chocolate wafers leads to nice pockets of chocolate that you can’t achieve with chocolate chips. Hand-chopping the chocolate with a knife is my preferred method because you’ll end up with a mixture of small and large pieces, leading to cookies with chocolate throughout (from the smaller bits and chocolate debris) and the occasional large gooey pockets (from the larger chunks).
Though it’s tempting to bake them right away, allowing your cookie dough to rest in the fridge overnight leads to better flavour. While the dough rests, the flour is hydrated and its proteins and starches begin to break down, leading to cookies that bake into darker, more flavourful versions of themselves with better chewy texture. An overnight rest is great, 2 nights is even better if you have the foresight!
Making a batch of this dough, shaping it into balls, and freezing is a true love letter to yourself. Just pop the balls of frozen cookie dough (no need to defrost) onto a lined baking tray anytime and bake as usual. The cookie dough will keep for several months in the freezer.
Almonds and white chocolate are delicious in these cookies but classic dark (or milk) chocolate would also be fantastic. Think of this cookie dough as a canvas for you to add whatever chocolate or nuts you like to.
