High Altitude Iced Walnut Poppy Seed Cookies
Soft and chewy walnut poppy seed cookies, dipped in brown butter icing. These easy walnut cookies come together quickly with no mixer needed.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Ingredients
Cookies
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tsp corn starch
- ¾ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp poppy seeds, optional
Icing (optional)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tsp meringue powder
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp water
Instructions
Cookies
- Melt the butter, in a saucepan on the stove or in the microwave.
- In a bowl, whisk together the melted butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar, until well combined. Then whisk in the vanilla extract and the egg, until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, corn starch, salt and baking soda, until everything is evenly distributed.
- Add the flour mixture, chopped walnuts and poppy seeds to the wet ingredients, and stir everything together with a spatula until you have a soft dough.
- Use a medium cookie scoop (about 1 1/2 tbsp capacity) to scoop 18 portions of dough. Don't roll the dough balls smooth with your hands – you want the surface to be a little rough and craggy. Just slightly flatten the tops of the dough balls with your fingers.
- Cover the dough balls with plastic wrap, and chill for 25 minutes while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Space the chilled cookies several inches apart on the baking sheet, baking half at a time, and keeping the rest refrigerated until needed. Bake the cookies for about 9-10 minutes, until the edges are set and light golden brown.
- Cool for several minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.
Icing (optional)
- In a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and meringue powder.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Continue to cook the butter for several minutes until nutty, golden brown solids form at the bottom of the pan. Immediately remove from the heat.
- Add the browned butter, vanilla and water to the powdered sugar mixture, and whisk until smooth and drizzly.
- To dip the cookies, turn a cookie over so that the top is facing down. Holding the cookie by the edges, lightly dip it in the icing, shake off the excess, and set on a baking sheet. Repeat with all the cookies.Note: You don't want to fully submerge the top of the cookies in the icing. Just lightly dip them so that the rough bumps and ridges on top of the cookies catch the icing, with plenty of gaps in between.
- If you like, sprinkle the icing with a little more chopped walnuts and poppy seeds before it dries.
- The icing will set and dry to the touch within a few minutes, and will stay a little soft underneath. Let dry for several hours before storing the cookies in an airtight container. Separate each layer of cookies with wax paper, so that the top cookies don't stick to the icing underneath.
Notes
Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
For large cookies, use a large cookie scoop or ice cream scoop with a release lever, and scoop 12 portions of dough. Slightly flatten the dough balls with your fingers, and chill for 30 minutes, then bake for 11-12 minutes.
If you don't have walnuts, pecans make a good substitution, but other nuts such as hazelnuts, would also be wonderful in these cookies.
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