Caramelized White Chocolate & Toasted Milk Cookies

Author Notes

Growing up, I felt like every family but mine had a cookie recipe that was passed down from generation to generation. Baking wasn’t a big part of the Indian culture my parents grew up in, so I knew I’d never get to bake cookies with my grandmother like the kids in the Nestle cookie dough commercial that ran during the holidays.

One of the reasons why I started my blog and wrote a cookbook was because I wanted to create measured, replicable recipes for my daughter. When my grandmother passed away, all the comfort foods and recipes were gone with her. I want to make sure that, when I am long gone, my daughter can bake these cookies and, someday in the future, share them with her kids. To me, recipes represent a piece of someone’s love and, just like scent memories, food memories can bring you right back to a moment in time.

This Caramelized White Chocolate & Toasted Milk Cookie recipe is the one I want to pass down to my daughter and her future generations. It’s inspired by Jaques Torres’s famous chocolate chip cookies, but with Indian flavors and ingredients.

I use a mixture of powdered jaggery, brown sugar, and white sugar to get the perfect chewy yet soft texture. Jaggery, or palm sugar, is an unrefined sugar made from palm tree sap and/or sugar cane. It’s typically sold in large brown bricks (similar to piloncillo), which are chiseled down into small pieces for cooking. Nowadays you can find powdered jaggery easily at your local Indian grocery store. If you can’t find jaggery powder, you can buy a block of jaggery and grate it. I love how it gives the cookies a slightly dark, toffee-like flavor.

Chopped, toasted pistachios and slivered almonds add a pop of color and crunch. Toasted milk powder, caramelized white chocolate, and cardamom all give this cookie a warm, cozy aroma that reminds me of my grandmother’s hugs where I’d get wrapped up in her sari. Milk powder is an oft-used ingredient in Indian desserts (mithai) and provides a sweet, subtly rich flavor. Toasting the milk powder gives that subtle richness a caramel-heavy note that pairs beautifully with the toasted nuts and cardamom.

While I may not have any recipes from my grandmother, I'm happy to have captured the feelings, flavors, and scents that remind me of her—and the sweets she used to make for us—in this cookie. —Milk and Cardamom

Test Kitchen Notes

This recipe is a part of Chocolate Week—seven days of recipes and stories, all chocolate—presented by our friends at Guittard. A fifth-generation family business, Guittard has been crafting an array of chocolate offerings (like top-quality baking chips, cocoa powder, and baking bars) in San Francisco since 1868.

Featured in: Food52's Holiday Cookie Chronicles —Food52