Butterscotch Macadamia & Cashew Cookies

I confess! I didn't bake the cookies in the photo, nor did I take the photo. My friend Matt baked
this batch, with my recipe, and I'm pretty sure his lovely wife Brooke took the photo. They are big big fans of these cookies - Matt claims to have made variations of them 4 times recently. I believe him, and you will too once you've tried them. Yeah, I'm smug about it. They've gotten really good reviews.

These are really soft, really buttery and if you get nuts with salt on them there's a nice sweet-vs-salty kick. Walgreens has lightly salted mixed cashews & macadamias pretty cheap. I stock up when they're on sale. You can use just macadamias, or pecans, or walnuts, or no nuts at all, switch the chips to chocolate or white chocolate or peanut butter chips. Really, do anything you want as far as the add-ins go. The base of these cookies is really flavorful and I doubt there's anything you could throw in that wouldn't be good.

Butterscotch Macadamia & Cashew Cookies

1 cup butter at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup lightly chopped macadamias and cashews

Preheat the oven to 325º.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer until creamy. Beat in the brown sugar, scrape down the bowl with a spatula, then beat in the granulated sugar until fluffy. Add the egg, beat it in, then beat in the yolk. Scrape down the bowl, add the vanilla, and beat again.
Add the flour and stir it in with a wooden spoon. Add the butterscotch and nuts, and stir just until evenly distributed.

Roll teaspoonfulls of dough into rough balls and place them 2" apart on a cookie sheet. Bake in the upper middle of the oven for 10-12 minutes or until browned around the edges. They will continue to bake after they are removed from the oven, so don't overbake them. Somewhat chewy centers are the key.