White Chocolate Nut Cookies

These white chocolate cookies use hand-cut chunks instead of chips, which means you get uneven pieces that melt into creamy pools during baking while larger chunks stay intact and give you pockets of sweet, cocoa butter richness in every bite.

The dough uses both brown and granulated sugar for a reason. Brown sugar brings moisture and chew from its molasses content. Granulated sugar adds crispness to the edges. Together, they give you cookies with crunchy rims and soft, chewy centers.

Creaming the shortening with milk before adding the sugars is an unusual step, but it distributes the fat evenly and creates a smoother base for the dough. The result is a more consistent spread and texture across all five dozen cookies.

Kitchen Tips

• Cut the white chocolate by hand into ¼-inch pieces. White chocolate chips have stabilizers that prevent them from melting as nicely as real chopped white chocolate.
• Use a level tablespoon of dough per cookie and keep them 2 inches apart. These spread, and crowded cookies merge into one big sheet.
• Pull them at 8 minutes when the edges are just set but the centers still look slightly soft. They firm up on the sheet during that 1-minute rest.
• Choose your nut mix: pecans, walnuts, and almonds all work beautifully here. A combination gives the most interesting texture.

Variations

• Add dried cranberries alongside the white chocolate for a sweet-tart combination.
• Swap the shortening for butter for richer flavor and crispier edges (they’ll spread more).
• Stir in a teaspoon of orange or lemon zest for a bright citrus note that pairs well with white chocolate.