Pistachio Cookies {with Bittersweet Chocolate Chips and Sea Salt}

I found a bag of pistachios on my counter this afternoon, leftover from my friend Jen’s birthday cake. I haaaate wasting food items so of course I needed to come up with a recipe to put the pistachios to good use. I browsed Pinterest trying to find the perfect recipe and eventually settled on a delicious looking cookie found at two peas & their pod.

I changed the cookie slightly by varying the flour and sugar. I also opted to grind the pistachios into a powder or flour. I’m not usually a fan of “nuts” in a cookie and I thought grinding the pistachios into powder would lend the pistachio flavor and lose the nut texture. The only thing I would have changed about this recipe would be to add more ground pistachio. Tasting the dough, without chocolate chips you can definitely pick up on the pistachio flavor and it’s wonderful. When you add the chocolate chips, however, the chocolate completely takes over. I only had about 1 cup of pistachios in my house and probably used about one-fourth a cup as a garnish. As a result, I was only able to add three-fourths a cup of ground pistachio to the dough.

ingredients.

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. bread flour
1/2 c. cake flour
1 tsp. sea salt
1 1/2 T. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 c. butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. pistachios, shells removed (reserve 1/4 c. for garnish and grind the remaining 3/4 c. to a fine powder)
2 c. bittersweet chocolate chips, plus additional for garnish
sea salt, for garnish

directions.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Using a mixer, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla and beat until completely incorporated.
With the mixer on low, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips. Using a spoon or cookie scoop, place mounds of dough on prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Make them the size that you want. I like to eat a bigger cookie. That way one cookie is enough for me. So I will use a heaping tablespoon of dough. Dot cookie dough with additional chips, pointed side up, to yield a pretty cookie. Press a few pistachios into the middle of the dough and sprinkle with sea salt.
Bake cookies for 12 to 14 minutes depending on the size of your cookie, or until lightly browned around the edges. Let cookies sit on baking sheet for at least 2 minutes then transfer cookies to a wire cooling rack and cool completely. I like to store my cookies in the freezer if they aren’t going to be eaten immediately. They keep longer that way.

Recipe rating: 

I normally don’t like to use all butter in a recipe because I find that butter cookies tend to flatten and spread when cooking. In this recipe I tried to combat the spreading effect by adding more flour. My cookies still spread out more than I would have liked. If you don’t like cookies that spread, I would suggest substituting margarine or vegetable shortening for half of the butter in the recipe. And it never hurts to add additional flour if you like a “chubbier” cookie.