This recipe for pistachio, white chocolate, and ginger cookies came about when my friend Julie came over and cooked dinner with me. I was sort of lost with dessert, but did have a bag of white chocolate, extra ginger (because you only really use a knobby stub of the stuff in a dish — and it does spoil fairly quickly), and extra roasted pistachios that I had been eating as a snack.
So I used the recipe on the back of the chocolate bag with modifications. I didn’t have brown sugar, for instance. Brown sugar is sugar plus molasses, so as substitute, I added honey, which is fairly hygroscopic (attracts/holds water molecules) so it helps the cookie retain moisture and chewiness.
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup shelled and roasted pistachios (salted okay)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/4 cup raw cane sugar (or granulated sugar if you don’t want to spring for the cane sugar)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, finely diced (if you like substantial ginger pieces in your cookies) or grated
- 1/2 teaspoon grated cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups white chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (191 C).
- In a mixer with the paddle attachment (or by hand with a wooden spoon, you beast, you!) cream together the room temp butter with the sugar on high speed. Beat until it’s fluffy and the butter is almost white in color. It’ll take about five minutes — longer if your butter is on the cold side.
- Add in eggs, vanilla, ginger, and honey. Beat until well-incorporated, about a minute.
- Stir flour, baking soda, and salt together in a separate bowl.
- Adjust mixer speed to slow and add in the flour mixture, in three portions. Be careful not to over-mix. Some flour streaking is okay.
- Sprinkle in nuts and chips and let the paddle have a few more turns to evenly distribute the goodies.
- Portion (rounded teaspoon) and distribute the cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or some equivalent). Space then at least 2 inches apart.
- Bake each batch for 8-10 minutes. The center should still look a little “raw” and shiny. Cool on wire rack.
- (ALTERNATIVELY) You can just roll raw dough into fat-teaspoon-sized balls and freeze them for a long time (I usually use mine up in three months). It’s nice to have on hand in case you just want to eat ONE or TWO cookies or if you have unexpected guests over and you have to feed them something.
This cookie has a bit of a North African/Middle Eastern vibe going because of the pistachios, the honey, and the spicy ginger.
And it’s pretty!
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