Flavors in Monochrome: White Chocolate Chip and Hazelnut Cookies

I've been making an awful lot of cakes lately, and recently I had a hankering to go back to basics and bake some cookies. I flipped through a few cookbooks and decided to try a recipe for "White Chocolate Chip and Hazelnut Cookies" from The Model Bakery Cookbook. I had all of the ingredients on hand, and these are straightforward drop cookies -- you just mix the batter and bake immediately.

To make the dough, you cream room temperature butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar; add eggs, water, and vanilla; incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt); and fold in white chocolate chips and chopped toasted hazelnuts. The recipe says it yields 15 cookies if you use a #16 scoop, but I wanted slightly smaller cookies, so I used a #30 scoop (and the yield was right on, because I got 32 cookies).

The cookies didn't look very interesting, because they're all one color. They also didn't stay perfectly round during baking. But I found them surprisingly delicious. White chocolate-macadamia nut cookies became all the rage some time ago, but I was never a big fan of the combination. I think white chocolate-hazelnut is a better combination, mostly because the smooth flavor and crunchier texture of the hazelnuts is more interesting. I also think the toasted hazelnuts are a good counterpoint to the white chocolate, which I can sometimes find cloying. These cookies are a simple, but delicious treat!

Recipe: "White Chocolate Chip and Hazelnut Cookies" from The Model Bakery Cookbook by Kara Mitchell and Sarah Mitchell Hansen.