If you have some of Costco’s Kirkland Mixed Nut Butter with Seeds, here’s a recipe for chocolate chunk cookies that uses a big spoonful of it. I just love these cookies, and they don’t require an electric mixer. They bake up big, soft, and chewy and have traditional chocolate chip cookie flavors of brown butter, vanilla, molasses and caramel. You won’t really taste the nut butter, but it does seem to improve the structure and texture of the cookies.
Cookies with Nut Butter and Brown Butter
The first step of this recipe is browning half of the butter. I’ve found that browning half gives the cookies flavor without sacrificing too much moisture. Plus if you brown half, you can use the remaining cold butter to cool it down quicker. So you brown half the butter, pour it in the mixing bowl, add remaining butter, nut butter and vanilla and let cool until butter sets and becomes opaque
Dry Ingredients
While the butter cools, gather and whisk together your dry ingredients. For the flour, I get great results using a mixture of bread and cake, but all-purpose works well too. Along with the flour you’ll mix in baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cream of tartar. The cream of tartar gives the cookies a gentle lift and helps keep them soft. The last addition to the dry ingredients is a pinch of cinnamon.The tiniest amount of cinnamon adds flavor without actually making the cookies taste cinnamon-y.
Making the Dough
Once the butter has soft-set and your flour mixture is ready to go, stir the sugar and egg into the butter/vanilla mixture. Stir by hand until smooth, then add the flour mixture and stir to form a soft dough. You can do all of this with a wooden spoon, or if you prefer, in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment on low speed.
Chocolate Chips and Chunks
Last comes the chocolate! These are called Chocolate Chunk Cookies, but I do use Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chips rather than chunks because they are larger and slightly less sweet. You can use a different type of bittersweet chocolate if you like. In addition to chips, I use Guittard Wafers and milk chocolate chips for variety. Whatever type chocolate you use, just make sure it’s large chips, wafers OR chunks. The cookies are designed for large chips or chunks that melt into the cookies and create layers of chocolate.
Walnuts or Pecans
Since the cookies have hidden mixed nut butter, you might as well throw in some walnuts or pecans to keep the nut theme going. Plus, the nuts will make it obvious that there are nuts in the cookies just in case there are folks in the midst who can’t have nuts.
Smoked Maldon Sea Salt
Smoked sea salt is a type of coarse grained salt infused with wood flavor. It’s an unusual addition to chocolate chunk cookies, but I’m really into it right now. I forget to top the cookies with the salt sometimes and they’re still very good, but they’re even better with a few grains of coarse salt.
Recipe
Kirkland Mixed Nut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Giant chocolate chunk cookies with a big spoonful of Kirkland Mixed Nut Butter with Seeds.
Ingredients
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks (170 grams)
- 2 tablespoons Kirkland Signature Mixed Nut Butter (32 grams)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour or use a mix of bread and cake flour (260 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon salt or ½ if using salted butter
- ¾ cup light brown sugar (150-160 grams)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- 1 large egg (48 grams)
- 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
- ½ cup semisweet or bittersweet wafers or chunks (or any other good quality dark chocolate)
- ½ cup walnut pieces
- Maldon sea salt or smoked Maldon sea salt
Instructions
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Brown 6 tablespoons of the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. As soon as it is brown and fragrant, scrape it into a mixing bowl.
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Add the remaining 6 tablespoons of cold butter to the brown butter, then stir in the mixed nut butter and the vanilla extract. Let stand so that the heat from the browned butter softens the cold butter. Give it a stir occasionally until mixture start to set.
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While the butter mixture is setting, grab a big bowl and whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar, salt and cinnamon until evenly blended.
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Once the butter has cooled completely, using a big wooden spoon or scraper, beat in the brown sugar, granulated sugar and egg.
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Add the flour mixture and stir until you have a soft dough.
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Add chocolate chips and chunks (or wafers) and stir until blended. You can add them all at once, or hold some back and stick them in the formed dough rounds.
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Divide dough into 10-12 equal size pieces and shape each piece into a round that’s about 2 ½ inches and more like puck than a ball. Put in a zipper bag or on a plate with plastic wrap to cover, and chill for 48 hours. You can go ahead and bake one or two right away as well. I think they are very good baked immediately and better baked with chilled dough.
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Bring however many dough balls you want to cook back to room temperature. You can bake them from cold as well, but they come out with more crinkles and crevices if you start them at room temperature.
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Have your oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat oven to 350F.
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Line a the larger baking sheet with parchment paper,
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Place 4 of the rounds on the sheet, giving them plenty of space to spread. Sprinkle Maldon salt on top of the cookies.
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Bake for about 15 to 18 minutes or until brown around the edges. There should be cracks throughout the top. Cool slightly on cookie sheet for about 3-5 minutes, then slide parchment onto a cool surface. Carefully transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
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