Cream Cheese Macadamia Nut Cookies

I decided to get started on some Christmas bakes today, seeing that Christmas is in a weeks' time. No more procrastinating or 'trying' to get into the baking mood. Once the mind is set, the task has to begin. I started off the day with a visit to Phoon Huat for some baking supplies. Ambitious me has 5 recipes that I want to try and a fruit cake as well. Let's see how far I'll go.

I made 2 recipes today. One of which was this particular recipe which got me a little excited with the words 'cream cheese'. I've never baked any cookies with cream cheese as an ingredient before, so I decided to give this a try, seeing that I had everything I needed for it.

My reference point for the recipes that I'm going to try out for the first time are from 'Taste of Home - Best Loved Cookies & Bars'.

Ingredients -

1/2 cup butter or 112.5gm, softened
1 package (80zs or 227gm) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (no need to cut down as cookies turned out only slightly sweet)
4 tsps grated orange peel (I grated the peel of 1 orange)
2 tsps vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsps baking powder
3/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts or almonds
3/4 cup chocolate chips (I added on my own)

Method -

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese, brown sugar, orange peel & vanilla.

2. Combine flour and baking powder. Gradually add to the creamed mixture; mix well. Fold in nuts. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm.

3. Drop by rounded teaspoons 2inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets with a greased glass. (I used my hands to roll them into balls and flattened them a little on the top).

4. Bake at 200 deg C (I used 180 deg C) for 9-11mins or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Notes - This is a good recipe for those who are allergic to eggs. The result was a cake-like cookie.

Point to add - The cookies didn't turn out sweet at all, and they are ok by my standard, but some might not like it. That's the reason I added the chocolate chips, to add sweetness to them, but it gave me a pleasant surprise instead, by bringing out the flavour of the orange which complimented the chocolate chips very well. Without the chocolate chips, the cookies were ok but you couldn't really taste the orange peel.