White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Today my daughter was supremely disappointed by a couple of her friends. As many mothers in the past, I decided to make cookies with her to assuage her sadness. We flipped through Martha's cookbook and decided on White Chocolate Chunk Cookies (page 172) because (a) we had all the ingredients and (b) it was the one cookie that both of my daughters and I could agree on.

These cookies are supremely easy to make - just mix up the ingredients, drop onto the baking sheet and slide into the oven! A relief after the last recipe! This recipe is rightly included in the "chunky and nutty" section as it has all kinds of goodies - oats, coconut and walnuts - which make it a very satisfying cookie. The recipe also calls for golden raisins, but my daughter requested I omit those and I happily obliged.

One of the comments on the web version of the recipe suggested substituting macadamia nuts for walnuts, and I think that would be a nice variation.

She was delighted with the result and declared them delicious!

Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies

The Cigarettes Russes were very popular and almost gone, so I made another batch of cookies tonight. We are buried under a ton of snow here in Columbus, OH, so I wasn't able to run out to get any special ingredients and I just wanted to make some comfort food. The recipe I chose was Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies (page 170), from the "crunchy & nutty" section of Martha's cookbook.

These cookies were extremely easy to make. Since I didn't have whole wheat flour, I simply used all-purpose flour for all the required flour. I substituted semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of chopping up chocolate into chunks (so this should probably be called Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip cookies in this case). As Martha says in her little intro to this recipe, these cookies combine "two bakery classics" - they are a delicious blend of banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. Yum!

My husband has been complaining that I like my cookies too crispy, so the texture of these were perfect for him, a little cakey and nice and soft.

Everyone enjoyed them - these are my kids and my brother-in-law noshing on the cookies after dinner.

Magic Blondies

The first recipe that I attempted from Martha Stewart's Cookies was the Magic Blondies recipe from page 180. I am not going in any particular order in the cookbook; I chose this recipe because I was looking for something that contained coconut to use up the large amount of shredded coconut that I found in our pantry (no idea why we have THREE bags of shredded coconut in there anyway).

The recipe chapters in this book are divided by texture. This recipe was deservedly located within the "chunky and nutty" section of the book, as they call for chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts and dried cranberries (or cherries). Because my husband has an almost pathological aversion to dried fruit, I omitted the cranberries/cherries.


The cookie batter itself is fairly basic - flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar (no white sugar), butter, eggs and vanilla. No special techniques or tools are needed.

You add the coconut/nut/chocolate chip mixture to the top of each cookie. These are meant to be baked in muffin tins, I like a mini portion better, so I used my mini muffin pan with excellent results (same baking time).


They were absolutely delicious! The consistency is somewhere between a cookie and a brownie, with a nice crunch from the coconut and nuts and a little gooey-ness from the chocolate chips. The mini portion is perfect for a two-bite snack. The topping is a little crumbly and probably would not withstand a lot of jostling if you wanted to take them somewhere else, but I was able to pack away a few for my mom without any major damage.