Ritz White Chocolate Cookies

These ritz cracker white chocolate cookies have been on my mind for the last little while (because I’ve tested it a gazillion times and if there’s a world shortage of ritz cracker, I am the culprit) and clearly it has been on yours as well. I shared that I was working on this ritz cracker cookie a few months back and it’s perhaps the most requested recipe I’ve had in a while. This cookie is for the cookie lovers, but specifically the white chocolate lovers (me), the ritz cracker lovers (me), and the sweet and salty lovers (also me). What I’m trying to say is that even though this cookie might seem like it’s all about me, it’s for you as much as it’s for me.

The cookies are a perfect combination of sweet and salty, chewy and crispy. The base of the cookie is a brown sugar cookie, like with my classic chocolate chip cookie recipe, but with the flour, we add blitz up Ritz cracker, just enough for you to notice that it’s not just a normal cookie recipe, but not so much that you might as well eat the cracker itself. The reason why it took so long to figure out this recipe is because I had to play around with the flour to ritz cracker to butter ratio to make sure it was consistent with each batch and that each batch would have the right spread. The first go at this cookie was quite an unfortunate (though delicious) mess — if you ever wonder if you can just replace flour with equal amount of Ritz cracker, the answer is: you cannot. There is too much fat in the cracker and it doesn’t hydrate the same way as regular flour. You end up with a puddle of a cookie and a slight mental breakdown in your kitchen depending on how fragile your mental state is. Another version also uses brown butter, but didn’t yield a consistent enough result each time, and made the cookie almost too greasy? What I’m saying is that after many versions and boxes of Ritz crackers, this is my favourite one yet and I hope you love it as much as I do.

Ritz White Chocolate Cookie

This cookie is for the cookie lovers, but specifically the white chocolate lovers (me), the ritz cracker lovers (me), and the sweet and salty lovers (also me). What I'm trying to say is that even though this cookie might seem like it's all about me, it's for you as much as it's for me.

Makes 12 cookies

By Amy

Ingredients

• 100 g (about 28 crackers) Ritz crackers
• 200 g all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 170 g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 126 g (1/2 cup and 2 tbsp) brown sugar
• 100 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 235 g (1 1/3 cup) coarsely chopped white chocolate
• more ritz cracker and white chocolate pieces, for topping
• flakey salt, for topping

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a blender of food processor, blitz ritz crackers until it becomes a fine crumb, some larger pieces is okay.
• In a bowl, whisk together ritz crumb, flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium speed until they are smooth, about 1 minute.
• Add the vanilla and egg to the butter mixture and mix on medium speed until they are fully incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
• Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until you don't see any streaks of flour, about 30 – 45 seconds.
• With a large ice cream scoop, form 12 even balls of dough.
• Place dough balls about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Place several pieces of white chocolate and ritz crackers onto each dough ball.
• Bake the cookies for 11 to 14 minutes, or until the cookies are browned and caramelized along the edges and the centres are just set. If you would like your cookies to have the crinkled edges, give the pan a few taps on the oven rack before you take them out of the oven.
• Top each cookie with flakey salt. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.