I baked these cookies on a Christmas day long ago which should explain the tablecloth that you see peeping through the wire rack. It was one of those experiments gone right.
We didn’t own a stand mixer back then which would have made the whole process easier and faster. But unless you want to double or triple the recipe to bake more cookies, the cookie dough can be mixed by hand without any serious difficulty because it isn’t stiff at all.
From the mixing bowl, the dough is dropped by teaspoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Ungreased because if you grease the cookie sheet, the bottom of the cookies will fry in the fat and turn dark too fast. That might make you panic and decide to pull the cookies out of the oven before they’re done. So, ungreased cookie sheets.
Chocolate chip and walnut cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- ½ cup butter - at room temperature
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour - plus 2 tablespoons
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup chocolate dark morsels
Instructions
- Roast the walnuts in an oil free frying pan for a couple of minutes, tossing often. Do not allow to darken. Cool.
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla essence. Beat until smooth.
- Add the flour mixture. Mix until smooth.
- Fold in the chocolate morsels and cooled chopped nuts. The cookie dough will be soft but not runny.
- Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet keeping the mounds at least two inches apart (I used two cookie sheets).
- Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.
- Cool the cookies in the pan for a couple of minutes to firm them up a bit as they are still soft when they come out of the oven.
- Using a spatula, carefully lift them and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. The chocolate chip and walnut cookies turn crisp after cooling.
