Golden brown, soft cookies studded with chocolate chunks, pistachio nuts and a thick, melted pistachio cream centre that oozes out when you break them in half. These are chunky, stuffed New York bakery style cookies using my favourite cookie dough base recipe.
Time to prep : 20 minutes (+ 1 hour chill time)
Time to bake : 15 minutes
Servings : 5 large cookies
Ingredients
180g butter, softened
35g light brown sugar
150g condensed milk*
220g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate bar, roughly chopped*
60g unshelled pistachios, roughly chopped
150g pistachio cream
Extra flaked salt to top after baking (optional)
Method
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a small mixing bowl and stir to mix everything together.
In a separate large mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar, condensed milk and vanilla together until it's smooth. Then, add in the flour mixture and use a spatula or clean hands to mix everything together until there are no steaks of flour. The dough might seem quite dry but it will come together after a few minutes and should be firm with a similar consistency to playdough.
Add in most of the chocolate chunks and chopped pistachios, reserving a few to press into the top of the cookies later. Fold through the dough until evenly dispersed.
Wrap the dough in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour*.
Lay out a single sheet of baking paper and spoon (or pipe*) a tablespoon of the pistachio cream onto the paper. This will be the 'stuffing' for each cookie. Repeat until you have 5 rough tablespoons on the baking paper sheet and then put this in the freezer to firm up until the dough has chilled.
When you're ready to bake the cookies, pre-heat a fan oven to 170ºC and line a baking tray with baking paper (I use two trays to allow plenty of room for the cookies to spread).
Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and unwrap it from the cling film. Split the dough into 5 portions and flatten each dough portion with your hands to make a large disc. Place 1 portion of the frozen pistachio cream in the centre of the cookie dough disc and then use your hands to envelope the dough around it so that it's completely covered. Roll into a ball with your hands and place on the prepared baking tray. Repeat until you've stuffed them all.
Press any remaining chocolate chunks and chopped pistachios onto the top of each cookie dough ball. There's no need to flatten the dough balls before they go into the oven, the heat from the oven will do this and we want to keep them as 'chunky' as possible.
Bake for about 15 minutes until they are just turning golden around the edges, they'll look slightly under baked but will continue to bake on the hot tray even once they're out of the oven. This keeps them soft and chewy in the middle.
Leave them to cool on the baking tray for at least 20 minutes to allow them to firm up slightly before serving. Sprinkle with salt (if using) and enjoy whilst still warm.
Nutritional Information
(per stuffed cookie)
548 calories
7g protein, 52g carbs, 35g fat
Notes
Use full fat condensed milk (I use the Nestle Carnation brand). You can freeze any leftovers or use it in other Supper Club recipes.
Use chocolate chips, chunks or roughly chop a bar of chocolate. Try this recipe with milk or white chocolate too.
Either spoon or pipe the pistachio cream onto the baking paper. Use a piping bag (or ziplock bag) with the tip snipped off. You can warm it up in the microwave to make it easier to pipe if needed. It won't freeze completely solid in the freezer but it makes it a lot easier to handle when stuffing the cookies than room temperature pistachio cream.
Allowing the dough to chill for at least 1 hour before stuffing and baking them is an essential step and allows the dough to 'rehydrate' for a softer, chewier texture and most importantly stops the cookies from spreading too much in the oven, keeping them nice and chunky.
To get perfectly-even sized cookie dough balls, weigh the large cling film wrapped dough ball after chilling it in the fridge and then divide that by 5 (or however many cookies you're making), and weigh out each portion.
These are large, New York style bakery cookies - to make smaller ones split the dough into smaller portions and use 1 heaped teaspoon (rather than tablespoon) of pistachio cream in each cookie.
These cookies are best enjoyed whilst they're still slightly warm so that the pistachio cream centre is still melted and gooey. But they can be eaten cold (and are still delicious!).
Store unbaked cookie dough in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. They can be baked straight from frozen, just add another 5 or so minutes on.
Once baked, store cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Vegetarian.