I’m not sure what it was about last week, but it felt like it was about twelve days long. Maybe it was because it was a five day week after a holiday week or maybe it was because the weather dipped down into the teens again, but all the memes are true: January lasted for 74 days. So, I brought these pies into work to help alleviate the rocky road that has been winter in New York. Then I escaped to Florida for the weekend! Only sandy roads for me!
What’s Inside: White chocolate macadamia nut cookies, white chocolate, heavy cream, vanilla, more macadamia nuts 
“Pro” tips:
1) Macadamia nuts are VERY pricey. I only bought two small jars for this even though I could have used a bit more. Then I got home to see that someone had opened the seal on one of the jars and eaten half of the nuts. Oooooh boy was I mad. So I trudged back to the store and they nicely swapped it out for me. Point is, check your containers when you’re paying $10 for a handful of nuts.
2) We’re actually making this cookie crust from scratch! In order to break up the recipe a bit, I made the cookies a bit earlier in the week. There were plenty extra, so I brought them to work as a little teaser of what was to come.
3) I found that I couldn’t get my white chocolate mixture to really smooth out, but once I added in the whipped cream, the consistency was correct. So, don’t fret if your white chocolate is a little lumpy at first. But be sure to mix frequently as it cools!
4) The recipe says you should use twelve 4-ounce mason jars as the vessels for these pies. Mine were hexagonal in shape, so filling them up was a bit more challenging, but I did wind up with a little bit of extra crust and a ton of extra filling. I think you could make the case for using a bigger jar OR you could do what I did and put the extra in a container to nibble on later.
What Baking Can Do:
The fact that the crust of these mini pies came from homemade cookies was hugely impressive. People were in awe! This was actually the first pie I tried since finishing January’s Whole30 diet, so I think my sweetness sensors were on overload and I don’t trust my own taste buds. I’m told these little guys were incredible, so I’m going with that. I only tried the extra filling I had and found it very good, but couldn’t have more than a spoonful. Guess that’s the price you pay for not eating sugar for a month!
