My husband requested these cream cheese-walnut cookies when he saw them pictured in a Martha Stewart Holiday Cookie magazine. I had never made them before. They are quite good, but do have a distinct cream cheese flavor. We like the taste, so it works for us. In fact, my husband liked them so much, he ate three before I could get them in the freezer!
I halved the recipe, which made 22 cookies. I had trouble getting the walnuts to stick to the dough log after removing it from the freezer. I only left it in the freezer for 30 minutes. If you freeze it longer, you may need to let it warm up before rolling in walnuts.
Cream Cheese-Walnut Cookies
From Holiday Cookies by Martha Stewart
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups butter, softened
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 tablespoons plus ½ teaspoon vanilla
2 ½ cups walnuts (1 ½ cups should be coarsely chopped and 1 cup should be finely chopped)
Sift together flour and salt; set aside.
Cream butter and cream cheese at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in sugar and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour and mix until just combined. Mix in walnuts.
Transfer dough to work surface. Divide in half; shape each half into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap each log in parchment paper and freeze about 30 minutes, or up to two weeks.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll each log in ½ cup chopped walnuts. Slice into ¼-inch thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake cookies, rotating halfway through, until golden around the edges, about 18-20 minutes. Let cool on wire racks.
Printable recipe
(Thanks to Angie of http://godsgrowinggarden.blogspot.com, for telling me how to link a printable recipe!)
