Pumpkin and White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies

Funny story about these cookies.

We LOVE white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies (we actually visited a macadamia nut farm once in Moloka'i. Good times.) Subway destroys me with their version - as if a giant meatball-loaded sandwich isn't enough, right? 3 delicious cookies for 99 cents is hard to walk away from. Such a blessed cookie, I say.

So when I told Ryan a couple nights ago that we'd be making some of his favorite cookies, he jumped right into the kitchen. We started adding the ingredients one by one... then he noticed the pumpkin can. What the heck, woman?!?! was written all over his face. He wasn't sure why I'd ruin perfectly wonderful cookies with a 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree. I assured him it'd be delicious, and to trust me. With that, the pumpkin puree went right into the mixture.

Our favorite part of making cookies is eating the dough. We think the dough always tastes better than the cookie in actual 'cookie form.' So naturally, we excitedly dove into the dough to taste our spoils.

It was absolutely disgusting.

I immediately regretted sticking the pumpkin in the batter. It was overpowering, and flat out gross. It tasted like eating nasty pumpkin straight from the can, and left no hint of flavor from our beloved white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. I hopelessly rolled a bit of the cookie dough into balls for baking. What a waste I thought.

After they came out of the oven, I tasted a half of a cookie: still gross. We put the rest of the cookie dough in the fridge. I was too lazy to deal with the mess that night.

This, my friends, is when the magic happened:

The next morning, I was stared in the face with the regretful excuse-for-a-cookie from the night before. I have no idea why I did, but I took a bite of cookie.

IT WAS AMAZING.

These cookies have a mind of their own. They tasted exactly like our beloved cookies, but with a small undertone of delicious pumpkin. Flat. Out. Delicious.


Right away, I turned on the oven to preheat, and cooked through the rest of the cookie dough. I must have eaten 5 within the hour. (let's just forget it was the morning time, 'aight?)

Ryan came home that evening, and saw the stack of cookies on our fridge. I smiled when I heard him opening the tupperware to get to the cookies. And as I expected, with a mouthful, he exclaimed:

What the heck did you do to these cookies? They're amazing!

We will never know what crazy voodoo happened to the cookie dough overnight. But whatever it was, give me another round.

Pumpkin and White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies 

Ingredients:
1/2 C butter, softered
1/2 C brown sugar, packed
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 t vanilla extract
1 C flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
3/4 C rolled oats
3/4 C white chocolate chips,
1/2 C macadamia nuts, toasted

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar in a stand mixer.
2. Beat in egg, vanilla, and pumpkin.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in another bowl.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
5. Mix in the rolled oats, white chocolate, and macadamia nuts.
6. Put in fridge overnight. Trust me.
7. Place dough on greased cookie sheet a couple tablespoons at a time.
8. Bake for 8-10 min.

Recipe Source: Closet Cooking