Waitrose Recipe Card Review - Chocolate & Macadamia Cookies

Chocolate + nuts, that's got to be one of the best food combos in existence! 

Even though I picked up a bunch of recipe cards from Waitrose last month, I hadn't actually got round to trying any of them out. They have been languishing in my ever shifting and ever growing pile of paperwork that "needs attending to". Finally, tonight I pulled my finger out. And a good job too... the bag of macadamia nuts I had bought especially had been opened and snacked on and the contents were dwindling rapidly.

This Waitrose recipe card is a collaboration with Green & Blacks cocoa products and boasts a melt in the mouth texture using Fairtrade ingredients. I'm sure you you could substitute the cocoa powder and white chocolate for another brand but I love Green & Blacks products because they do make very good chocolate and when you make a recipe like this with so few ingredients, I think it's important that they are good quality.

I mixed up the ingredients and a  few things struck me - the volume and texture of the cookie mix and the proportions of the ingredients. There didn't seem to be much mix. How is this puny bowlful of "dough" going to make 16 cookies? And it's so dry! Why are they so stingy with the macadamias? 25g is barely more than half a dozen big nuts. Are these cookies are going to be ok?

I decided to trust the recipe on the volume and dryness but not on the nut quota.. I doubled it up to 50g.

You have to roll the dough into walnut sized pieces, with cocoa powder on your hands to stop it sticking to you...which in my case involves dusting the entire kitchen in cocoa powder.... and lo and behold, there was enough dough for 16 cookies!

The card has a "Cook's Tip" which is: The cookies will spread a little during cooking, so leave space between them on the baking sheet.

My "Cook's Tip" is: do as the Waitrose recipe card says, yes, these boys really spread once cooked. In fact, despite being worried about the how thick the mixture was, mine spread out a great deal to become much thinner than those on the front of the recipe card.

My other tip would be: don't have the oven on too hot...which is what I did with the first batch because I had the lamb roasting in the oven for dinner. These cookies are better slightly under-cooked, rather than over cooked.

Result: Success! This recipe is simple, quick, and dirty! The icing sugar and butter make these cookies super crumbly and "melt in the mouth" and you can't beat the excellent Green & Blacks chocolate taste combined with the macadamias. Oh yes, I'm glad I put extra nuts in and you should too!