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Maui Wowie CookiesM A K E S 6 0 2 - I N C H C O O K I E S

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1  cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 eggs, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups unsifted flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chips (white, dark and/or semi-sweet)

1 1/2 cups roasted & salted macadamia nuts, chopped coarsely (Mauna Loa Roasted Macadamia preferred)

pinches kosher or sea salt

Preheat oven to 350°F. Using a stand mixer on medium, Cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and vanilla. Beat until fully blended. Lower mixer speed and add flour, baking soda and salt until dough forms. At lowest speed, stir in nuts and chocolate.

Allow dough to rest in fridge for 30 minutes. Drop onto parchment-covered cookie sheets and bake 4 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven and sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of kosher salt. Return cookies to the oven for approximately 5 more minutes until tops are just beginning to brown. Allow the cookies to cool for 15 minutes.

SALT AND SWEET ARE NATURAL PARTNERS; in fact, salt makes sweet things taste sweeter. These cookies answer the question of how much chocolate and nuts you can stuff into a cookie. These aren’t the usual flat and crunchy Toll House cookies; they bake up taller and cakier. But it’s the sprinkle of kosher or sea salt on the top and the saltiness of the macadamia nuts that make the cookies awesome.

Like any cookies, they taste best right out of the oven, but you can recapture a little of that just-baked quality with a short blast in the microwave. A 10 second shot is all it takes to warm up these cookies.

All the more reason to err on the side of caution when you are baking them and risk under-cooking them. Browning the bottoms of these cookies adds an unpleasant burnt note even when only slightly over-cooked, and they actually finish after the are removed, so watch them carefully.