For my birthday last month, my sister gave me How to Be a Domestic Goddess. After reading through it for the past month, I finally dove in and made something today. These cookies intrigued me. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted cookies with white chocolate and pistachios, much less made them. I just happened to have some pistachios I bought for some recipe I’ve already lost track of, so I thought these would be a good place to start on my very long path to domestic goddess-ism.
A good thing to know before starting this recipe is what “scant” means. Apparently, it means just barely. So, a scant cup of something is not quite a cup. Okay, we move on. But be warned that my use of the word scant in this post is not, well, scant.
As cookies go, these are pretty straightforward. Beat together a scant 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, 7 tablespoons of sugar, and a scant 1/2 cup of brown sugar (I used light). Add to this mixture 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and an egg. Next, add 1 cup of AP flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Next, you’ll need a scant (last time, I promise) 1/2 cup of ground pistachios. For me, that meant I had to dig around to find my Kitchen Aid mini chopper. Sadly, it was still packed from our move earlier this year. The shame. Anyway, I found it, cleaned it up, and ground up some pistachios. Mix this into the dough. Stir in 4 ounces of whole pistachios and 4 ounces of white chocolate that has been chopped.
Form the dough into balls and place on lined baking sheets. Be warned that these cookies spread a good bit, so leave ample space between them. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until done. Cool on pans for a few minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.
These cookies are quite unique. I may have gone a tad heavy with my butter measurement. Cut that back a bit, and these would be pretty close to perfect. These aren’t the prettiest cookies I’ve ever seen, but the taste more than makes up for that.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:07 am
I have been thinking to myself that white chocolate and pistachios would be a really good combo! Yum!
September 29th, 2006 at 10:02 am
I’ve got the Domestic Goddess book too but I haven’t tried these yet. I failed horribly on the chocolate macarons, but that was my fault, not the book’s… what else is new?
September 29th, 2006 at 11:38 am
White chocolate goes extremely well with nuts. Looks like a great recipe.
September 29th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
I love the combo of pistachio and white chocolate.
September 30th, 2006 at 5:06 am
oh my. looks delicious. pistachios are my favorite nut!
September 30th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
They look wonderful! At Christmas I actually make a white chocolate/pistachio cookie and I find the combination amazing!
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:28 am
I’ve never tried chocolate/pistachio cookies either, but yours look divine. I used to have the DG book but I guess I had a very early printing because a lot of the conversions from the metric system were waaaaay off. I thought it was just me until I read on Amazon that other people were having the same problem. Maybe it’s time to buy a newer printing!
October 2nd, 2006 at 3:19 pm
These sound great! We have wonderful pistacchios in Sicily and I use them in pasta sauces but haven’t baked with them yet.
October 3rd, 2006 at 8:01 am
These cookies sound lovely! I’ve been looking at getting HtBaDG… overall do you think it was a good purchase?
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:42 pm
So far so good, Gilly. This is the first recipe I made from it, but there are a ton of things I want to try. I would recommend it.
October 4th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Wow, what a great pair! Can’t wait to try the recipe. Thanks for sharing!
October 9th, 2006 at 3:44 am
yum!!!!!! if you have any leftover, you should make ice cream sandwiches with them with pistacho or vanilla bean ice cream… mmmmm
October 9th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Ice cream sandwiches? What a wonderful idea!
April 14th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
These look great. Am just about to make them, with a few dried cranberries in the mix!