I’ve been making these white chocolate macadamia nut bar cookies for over ten years, and they are always my most requested cookie recipe. I tend to be pretty lazy about copying recipes though and often don’t fulfill my promise to provide the details for how to make these. My hope is that in posting my white chocolate macadamia nut bar recipe here I can just point to this whenever someone asks.
This recipe is a revised from a recipe for chocolate macadamia nut bars published in The Treasury of Creative Cooking (1992). The original version used regular chocolate, but I made the switch to white chocolate because I already had a bunch of chocolate cookie recipes. I like the white chocolate version because everything is basically the same color so you can’t tell where cookie stops and cream cheese filling and macadamia nuts begin.
White chocolate macadamia nut bars
- 12 oz white chocolate
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 2/3 c. whipping cream or undiluted evaporated milk
- 1 c. chopped macadamia nuts
- 1 tsp vanilla, divided
- 1 c. butter, softened
- 1 ½ c. sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 c. flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
Preheat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease a 13×9 inch pan. Combine chocolate, cream cheese and cream in large heavy saucepan. Stir over low heat until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat; stir in nuts and ½ tsp vanilla.
Cream butter and sugar in large bowl. Beat in egg and remaining ½ tsp vanilla. Add flour, baking powder and salt, blending well.
Press half of the butter mixture on bottom of prepared pan. Spread chocolate mixture evenly over the top. Sprinkle remaining butter mixture over chocolate.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.
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Looking for something to wash down your white chocolate macadamia nut cookie? Try my recipe for glogg mulled wine.
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Kim Z. Dale 