Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe

In this Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe I am balancing the sweetness of the cookies with the freshness of raspberries and lovely crunchy pistachios. These add-ins make the overall experience more complex both in terms of taste but also texture-wise. Of course, I am keeping the cookie texture fudge and chewy, that you love!

Making this Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe is equally easy than making my popular Chocolate chip cookie recipe! No special equipment is needed and it comes together in 15 minutes! Let´s get started!

Jump to:

• Important notes regarding the INGREDIENTS of this Chewy Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe
• My top 6 tips about the TECHNIQUE of making this Easy Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe
• Other cookie recipes
• Raspberry Pistachio Cookies with white chocolate

Important notes regarding the INGREDIENTS of this Chewy Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe

1. Butter: Use always unsalted as you want to be in control of the quantity of the salt. I am using 82% fat content butter in all my recipes. In this recipe butter needs to be at room temperature which technically means soft enough to be able to cream but not too soft or runny so avoid last minute microwaving
2. Sugar: I am using simple granulated sugar in here, nothing fancy. If you want to learn about the different types of sugar and how to use them in baking, please read my Sugar guide.
3. Vanilla extract: Avoid using artificial vanilla. There are several great brands for fine, pure vanilla, I use Nielsen massey which I love and really recommend
4. Egg: Room temperature as always
5. Flour: I find the best cookie recipe needs a mixture of soft (pastry) and hard (bread) flour, they both offer different benefits in terms of texture, alternatively use AP only. If you want to be a Pro when it comes to deciding what type of flour to use in your baking, please read my Flour guide.
6. Salt: An essential ingredient in most of the dessert recipes. Balances flavour and enhances other ingredients, do not leave it out
7. Baking powder and baking soda: They all work together to make your Raspberry Pistachio cookies tender and chewy
8. Raspberry: Fresh or frozen can also work here
9. Pistachio: Raspberry Pistachio cookies of course will needs some pistachios! Funny enough I run out of pistachios and actually used salted pistachios that works wonderful too (if it is too salty remove some of the salt from them)
10. Chocolate chip: Raspberry and pistachio calls for white chocolate chips. Make sure you use high quality chocolate that has a pleasant taste! In this recipe I am using is Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets). This  is a high-quality chocolate (yet affordable) that contains a higher percentage of cocoa butter than the average supermarket chocolate

If you love pistachios as much as I do, don´t forget to check out my pistachio desserts collection.

My top 6 tips about the TECHNIQUE of making this Easy Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe

1. What is the process of making Raspberry Pistachio cookies

Making this Raspberry Pistachio cookies recipe is extremely easy and quick but there are a couple of key steps you have to get right to achieve the right texture

• With an Electric hand mixer cream together butter and sugar
• Mix in the egg, just until combined then the vanilla extract
• Sift the two different kinds of flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda together. Sifting is necessary to avoid lumps later
• Add the flour mixture into the dough and fold with the help of a Rubber spatula just until combined. Make sure you fold it with a Rubber spatula only until the mixture comes together, literally 30 seconds. Do not use a mixer and do not over mix the brownie cookie butter. Over mixing ingredients would result in incorporating too much air and gluten into the mixture in which case the cookies might get a crumbly, cake like texture and we do not want that!
• Finally fold in pistachios and white chocolate chips, again in a few seconds
• Line 2 trays with parchment paper and with the help of a Digital scale divide the cookie batter into 10 equal cookies and place them on parchment paper leaving enough space between them to spread. Do not soften the surface of the ball, in fact try to keep it as rough as possible for a nice, crackly surface
• Now comes the chilling time. See details below

2. Why chill cookie dough before baking

You will have to chill the cookie dough for at least 1 hour and the main reason behind it is to avoid over-spread, sad looking, flat Raspberry Pistachio cookies.

The warmer the dough the easier it will spread in the oven and our aim is to achieve thick, crackly surface, fudge cookies. If you don’t have an hour to wait, try 15min in the freezer. Regarding the cookies spreading too much or not enough in the oven, there are a couple of tricks you can fix the issue, see my tips further below.

Did your cookies spread too much besides all these efforts? Check out my guide on why cookies came out flat and how to fix them.

3. How to properly bake these Raspberry Pistachio cookies

Baking these Raspberry Pistachio cookies is a super delicate matter, one of the most important parts of the recipe!

First of all, never bake any dessert without properly pre-heating your oven first, so start with that. The cookies will be baked at 175 C / 347°F so preheat the oven +20C / 68F as the oven temp drops when you open the door. Always use Digital oven thermometer to avoid over baked crumbly or under baked cookies.

I bake these cookies cookies in the following way: 10 minutes at 175 C / 347°F. After 10 minutes cookies should already somewhat spread and that is when I place the raspberries on top. It is also a perfect moment to slightly shape the cookies and make them perfectly round, see tips further below at the next section. After, I bake them for another 5 minutes at again 175 C / 347°F. Please note, that each oven is different so you might need to adjust the times slightly.

The cookies are ready when the edge looks sot of baked and the middle slightly gooey but not raw. Do not over bake your cookies! Leave the cookies in the baking pan while they are still hot as they will further set as they cool. Move them to a cooling rack when they are already partly set, like 5 minutes after they are out of the oven, then let them cool on the rack.

4. How to achieve crackly surface on cookies

First of all please do not use substitutes or reduce the sugar in this recipe as it might result in a completely different texture than my Raspberry Pistachio cookies.

Beyond having a good recipe, it is also about the baking technique. Your chocolate cookie dough will naturally spread a bit in the oven, should not spread too much if you chilled it before baking and pre-heated the oven. The cookies will also puff up due to the baking soda added.

Apply the tray bang trick:

After 10 minutes of baking time, take the tray out, and bang the whole tray gently to the kitchen counter 3-4x. This tray banging trick is all around Instagram (it is not my initial idea) , it encourages crinkle formation on the top of the cookies. It also helps, if for some reason, your cookies would not spread.

Apply the circular trick:

After the tray banging, grab a large cookie cutter or any round shape thing in your kitchen (slightly larger than the the size of the cookies in the oven). Hold the cookie cutter and make circular movement around the almost baked cookies which will slightly tighten the cookies, make them perfectly round shape and the movement also encourages crinkle forming on top. Incredible easy trick and works! Place raspberries on top then put the tray back to the oven and repeat the circular movement at the end of the baking time, if necessary.

5. How to get chewy gooey centre on cookies

For gooey cookies first of all you need a recipe that has the right ratio of ingredients eg. high enough fat content (butter) vs flour, good news is that this Raspberry Pistachio cookie recipe perfectly delivers on that!

Secondly, you must measure your ingredients with a digital scale, a little bit too much of this, not enough of that can majorly change this recipe eg. adding a little bit too much flour might ruin the gooey center you strive for.

Thirdly, do not over bake these cookies! In fact, you have to take them out of the oven when they do not look properly baked yet… It is better to under bake your these cookies than to over bake them.

Please note that you might need to experiment with your own oven in this regard and you will see whether you need exactly 15 minutes baking time like in my oven or maybe 1-2 minutes more or less.

6. How to achieve perfectly round cookies

Your cookies will naturally spread in the oven and puff up due to the baking powder added. At 10 minutes then at the end of the baking time again,  grab a large cookie cutter or any round shape thing in your kitchen (slightly larger than the the size of the cookies in the oven). Hold the cookie cutter and make circular movement around the cookies – this movement will slightly tighten the cookies, make them perfectly round shape and the movement also encourages more crinkle forming on top. Make sure you don´t break them though while applying the trick, they are very fragile at this point and will set later.

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