Salted Cashew Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup salted, halves and pieces cashews
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line 2-3 cookie sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Set aside. In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy using a stand or electric hand mixer. Add the egg and vanilla and combine thoroughly. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until a very thick dough forms.

Fold in the chips and nuts.

Form cookies by dropping 1 heaping tablespoon of dough two inches apart (I like this cookie scoop that hold 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough).

Flatten slightly then bake until light brown on the bottom, about 12-13 minutes.

Slide them out on the parchment paper onto a wire rack and allow them to cool 1-2 minutes on the parchment or Silpat on the wire rack before removing the parchment and allowing them to cool directly on the wire rack.

Cool completely before storing in air-tight containers.

My thoughts:
I am not a huge fan of nuts in baked goods. Walnuts remind me of baby teeth. I rarely use them unless I am making something for someone else or making bar cookies like these where they aren’t hidden and stay crisp. Anyway, I had to buy some cashews to garnish a recipe I was testing and had a ton leftover. I haven’t had a cookie with cashews before but why not try? I ended up liking them a lot! Cashews are pretty soft so the texture melds really well with the cookie dough. I guess it makes sense since it actually a seed and not a true nut? The chocolate chunks were around the same size as the cashews and it made for a really chocolatey cookie. 
I used salted nuts and didn’t add salt to the dough but since my cashews weren’t terribly salty, it only added a savory note, not a ton of salty flavor. If your cashews are saltier, you might have a stronger sweet/salt contrast. 

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