recipe on repeat - cream cheese, walnut and chocolate chip cookies.

But always a little different.

I added walnuts this time, which is certainly not a surprising ingredient I agree, but instead of adding the toasted walnuts at the end I threw them into the warm butter-sugar-vanilla mixture - I was inspired by the buttered pecans concept - and let them sit in the mixture as it cooled, soaking up the delicious flavours. The result is walnuts that do not seem like an afterthought or mere sidekicks to the chocolate chips; the walnuts held their own despite the busy complex flavours of a cookie dough that has had close to 24 hours to mature. I found myself reaching for the cookies that had the most bits of walnuts showing instead of chocolate. I think that's a win for the walnut.

Unfortunately when I left the walnuts to take a bubble bath in the buttery sugary mix they soaked up quite a bit of liquid and caused the dough to be a little crumbly. Another consequence of this step is that the cookies would barely expand and remain mostly in the shape they were before they baked. I wasn't too troubled by either outcomes but if you prefer your cookies to be shaped like flat-ish rounds then you should probably just add toasted walnuts along with the chocolate chips. Either way as long as you take care to not overbake the cookies, you would have gooey delicious ones with that remain satisfyingly crunchy around the edges.

Cream Cheese, Walnut and Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes around 20 medium sized cookies
adapted from here with minor modifications

1 stick butter, melted and browned
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/3 to 1/2 cup cream cheese, diced and kept chilled

Combine browned butter (that is still warm), sugars and vanilla extract in a bowl. Stir in walnuts. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Beat in egg. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt until combined. Gently stir in chocolate chips and cream cheese chunks. Chill cookie dough for at least 2 hours.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Take around 2 tablespoons worth of dough, roll into a ball and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicon baking mat. Space each ball of cookie dough at least 1 inch apart from the next. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.