White Chocoalte Macadamia Cookies (Secret Recipe Club)

Once again my Secret Recipe Club assignment has introduced me to another delightful blogger.  Julie, of Julie's Eats and Treats, lives in West Central Minnesota and I feel a little bit of a connection with her as my Dad's family hails from Red Wing, MN, which I'm guessing is not all that far away.  With relatives still in Minneapolis I get occasional winter weather updates and with my San Diego-Sissy skin I'm always somewhat thrilled that I'm not knee deep in snow with wind chills below zero.

Perusing Julie's blog I didn't get far before I stumbled upon her White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.  Loving of the buttery mac nuts like I do, my hunt for a recipe ended nearly before it began.  Now, that's not to say that there weren't many other recipes that I have tagged to try... just that I couldn't get past this one featuring my favorite Hawaiian nuts.

Remembering Debbie Fields introducing her little cookie shops I have fond memories of discovering how much I love these flavors together.  A job at a department store funded my college education, and I spent many a break popping into Debbie's stores where the cookie I usually purchased was the White Chocolate Macadamia (with the occasional Oatmeal Cookie on the side).

Since those college years I've been on a search for as many mac nut recipes as I can find and I simply couldn't pass this one up.  And... I'm really glad I didn't.  Not really on my pre-vacation diet, I probably shouldn't have made them, but I did cut the recipe in half so as not to overly temp myself with the sweet treats that disappeared from our cookie jar in a flash.

Being a little impatient I have to admit to not following the recipe as I should have and I performed that ever dreaded mistake of reaching for the baking powder in place of the baking soda.  Luckily catching my error before dumping the entire spoonful into the mix, I only dropped about 1/4 of a teaspoon into the dry ingredients.  However, I'm thinking that with the beautiful rise I got out of these guys it may not have been a bad idea.

Slightly crunchy on the outside and chewy inside, these cookies had me reminiscing of afternoons spent with Mrs. Field's.  Julie, truly a pleasure to meet you, I'm so glad you were my assignment!

White Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Cups

I'm not usually one to gush.  My emotions usually stay fairly well in check with the occasional real high or the incidental low, but for the most part I'm pretty darn straight and even.  However... today I'm going to gush!!!  WOW!  Wow!! Wow!!!  White Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Cups are amazing!  Awesome!  Spectacular!  Dazzling!  Fabulous!  Magnificent!!!  And I could go on!

What a treat these little packages are.  Pumpkin Pie spiced filling surrounded with a crisp outer white chocolate shell and topped with decorative, seasonal sprinkles.  A bit labor intensive, but most definitely worth the effort.

Searching numerous stores for "foil lined" mini muffin cups proved unsuccessful, and I ended up experimenting with a last minute find of mini silicone cups.  The little cups worked like a charm and actually brought me around to appreciating the reusable factor as I'm thinking these treats will be oft repeated.  A dollop of melted white chocolate is spooned into the cup and swirled, then painted up the sides.  I rested mine in the freezer for about 10 minutes and the hardened shells popped out like a charm.

The filling whisks together in a flash, but actually filling the cups takes a bit of time and some care is needed with the fragile chocolate.  A little bit of a learning curve had some of my cups a bit lumpy on top or filling showing due to incorrect coverage, but now that I've got my groove down I know the next batch, which will grace our Thanksgiving table, will be beautiful in addition to delicious.