Decadent vanilla white chocolate cookies

Show me someone who doesn’t like white chocolate and I’ll show you a shameless liar.

Super sweet, very hard to cook with and far too easy to burn, you just can’t turn your nose up at a decent bar of the stuff – or better still, a few white chocolate cookies.

If you’ve been following Butter Wouldn’t Melt for a while, you’ll have spotted that I’ve got a couple of cookie recipes up, a classic chocolate chip and an artisan dark chocolate & coffee. We love both, and depending what’s in the chocolate drawer find ourselves whipping up either whenever we’ve got friends coming over, (with the occasional request thrown in by the boys at the club). But if you’re looking for an all-round crowdpleaser, it’s impossible to look beyond these white chocolate cookies.

There’s not a massive difference in the basis of this recipe to the artisan dark chocolate cookies. Though some of the quantities are a little different here, you’d get away with keeping the same ingredients, changing up the chocolate type and potentially adding a couple of different flavours. I flipped the granulated and light brown sugar amounts here as I wanted more of a caramel taste and then doubled the vanilla bean extract for extra flavour and because of the absence of the syrupy camp coffee. Have a little experiment and let me know how you get on.

what you’ll need

Equipment: large mixing bowls, electric mixer/handheld electric beater. Baking sheet.

INGREDIENTS

white chocolate cookies:

360g flour
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
120g granulated sugar
180g light brown sugar
250g lightly salted butter, cubed at room temperature
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla bean extract
400g white chocolate, roughly chopped

METHOD

making your cookie dough:

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Set your dry ingredients aside until needed.

Throw your butter, granulated sugar and light brown sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, or a separate mixing bowl. Beat together on medium speed till light and fluffy – around 5 minutes. Pause occasionally to scrape down the sides and bottom.

One at a time, add in the eggs, beating well after each. Pause again to scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl before adding in the vanilla bean extract. Beat for a further minute until well combined.

Set the mixer to medium-low speed and add half of the dry ingredients. Beat until roughly combined then add the rest of the dry ingredients. Beat until just combined – 30 seconds or so – then toss in the white chocolate and beat for a further 10 seconds.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and leave covered with cling film in the fridge for 30 minutes.

baking your cookies:

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line a baking sheet with non-stick parchment paper.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Using your hands or a large tablespoon, scoop out enough mixture to form a 1 inch wide ball. Place on the baking sheet and repeat, evenly spacing your dough balls. You should get around 8 per sheet, depending on size. Put your leftover dough back in the fridge.

Bake for 10 minutes. After 7 minutes, the cookies should be beginning to puff in the middle, open the oven door and lift the baking sheet up a couple of inches before dropping it back onto the rack. The cookies will deflate and flatten slightly. Close the oven door and let the cookies bake for another 30 seconds or so. Repeat the lift and drop a further two times. When baked, the cookies should be golden, with crisp edges and gooey middles. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes on the baking tray. Transfer them carefully to a wire rack to cool for a further 5 – 10 minutes.

Repeat with your remaining cookie dough, or wrap that up and freeze till you want to bake some more.