Ummm hello? What’s this? A brand NEW cookie recipe for you because we all need a little treat to kick off summer. As you might be able to tell from these recent Coconut Key Lime Pie Energy Bites I’m on a bit of a lime-infused kick and I’m not mad about it.
These gorgeous key lime cookies are based on my amazing White Chocolate Macadamia Snickerdoodles, but we’re skipping the sugar coating and instead infusing them with fresh lime zest because I like to get a lil’ wild.
One bite of these key lime pie cookies and I was HOOKED. They’re golden and crispy on the outside, perfectly chewy in the middle, and have gooey white chocolate and buttery macadamia nuts in every bite. Did I mention they’re also made with brown butter? You know how I do.
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Ingredients in these key lime pie cookies
Whether you use actual key limes or a regular lime, the flavor will seriously taste just like a slice of your fav key lime pie. They’re sweet, they’re a lil’ tart, and perfectly chewy. Here’s what you’ll need to make them:
- Flour: we’re using good old all-purpose flour in these cookies.
- Butter: you already know we’re browning that butter for extra nutty, indulgent flavor.
- Sugar: you’ll need both dark brown sugar and white granulated sugar to sweeten the cookies. Learn how to make brown sugar here!
- Lime: we’re adding a full tablespoon of lime zest for that true lime flavor. Feel free to use key limes or a regular lime!
- Eggs: you’ll need 1 egg and 1 egg yolk to give the cookies the perfect texture.
- Baking staples: don’t forget the baking soda, salt, and vanilla extract. Learn how to make your own vanilla here!
- For the mix-ins: here’s where it gets fun. We’re mixing in a chopped-up white chocolate bar and chopped roasted macadamia nuts. YES PLEASE.
What are key limes?
Key limes are smaller, rounder, and light yellow compared to regular green limes. Their juice is tarter and there’s much less of it compared to the juice of regular limes. There is a slight difference in flavor between the two, but you can pretty much use them interchangeably in recipes. We’re just using the zest in these lime cookies, so feel free to use key limes or regular limes!
Let’s talk brown butter
Mixing brown butter into these key lime cookies really takes the flavor to the next level. Learn exactly how to brown butter with our tutorial here, and check out more recipes using it!
Can I make them gluten free?
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend a good gluten-free flour substitute that will give you the same wonderful key lime pie cookies. Feel free to try out any of my gluten free cookies here.
How to make the best key lime cookies
- Brown your butter. Start by browning your butter until it’s fragrant and a deep golden brown. Set it aside until it’s cool enough to touch before adding it to your dough.
- Mix the wet ingredients. Add the cooled brown butter with your sugars and lime zest to an electric mixer and mix for 1-2 minutes until smooth. Then mix in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
- Make the dough. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the bowl of the electric mixer and beat the dough on medium-low speed until just combined.
- Add the mix-ins. Fold in the white chocolate chunks and chopped macadamia nuts on low speed.
- Shape and chill. Use a cookie scoop to grab about 2 tablespoons of dough and roll it into balls, Place the dough balls on a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour (or up to overnight) or freeze for 15-20 minutes.
- Bake ’em up. Let the dough balls sit at room temp for 15-20 minutes while your oven preheats to 350 degrees F. Then place them on a baking sheet and bake until the edges begin to turn golden brown. Do not overbake!
- Cool & devour. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then completely on a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining dough and enjoy!
Don’t forget these cookie-baking tips
With these simple tips and tricks you’ll have perfect key lime cookies every time:
- Do not use substitutes. Unless I provide swaps, do not substitute other ingredients as the cookies will not turn out the same.
- Use room temp ingredients. After browning your butter, make sure it’s cool enough to touch before adding it to your dough. I usually set it aside to cool for 10-15 minutes before making the recipe. Also, be sure to scrape every bit of brown butter from your pan. You’ll want to make sure your eggs are at room temp, too, so they don’t coagulate with the butter. Simply run the eggs under warm water for about a minute or place them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.
- Measure your flour correctly. Do you know the best way to measure flour without a scale? Get my tips & tricks in this video!
- Chill the dough. Yes, this recipe requires you to chill the dough, but I promise it’s worth it. Chilling cookie dough allows the cookies to create the best flavor and gives the cookies those golden edges, a chewy interior, and crackly tops. This happens because the fat in the recipe (butter) is solid and the sugar also absorbs some of it. Trust me, it’s a game-changer.
Two ways to freeze key lime cookies
These easy key lime cookies are perfect for baking up a big batch and freezing the dough OR the baked cookies for later. Check out our full post here to see exactly how to freeze them two different ways.
More cookie recipes you’ll love
- Lemon Cookies with Lovely Lemon Glaze
- White Chocolate Macadamia Snickerdoodles
- Salted Brown Butter Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies
- White Chocolate Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies
- Salted Brown Butter Coffee Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Get all of my cookie recipes here!
I hope you love these amazing key lime white chocolate cookies. If you make them be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked them! Enjoy, xo.
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Key Lime White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Ingredients
- Dry ingredients:
- 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Wet ingredients:
- 1 cup salted butter (unsalted also works!)
- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon lime zest (from 2 key limes or 1 large lime)
- 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- For the mix-ins:
- 8 ounces white chocolate, chopped
- ¾ cup coarsely chopped roasted macadamia nuts
Instructions
- First, brown your butter: add butter to a large saucepan and place over medium heat. The butter will begin to crackle, and then eventually foam. Make sure you whisk constantly during this process. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown and turn a nice golden amber color on the bottom of the saucepan. Continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a medium bowl to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes or until cool enough to touch.
- Once brown butter has cooled down a bit, add all (including the brown bits) of it to the bowl of an electric mixer, along with the dark brown sugar, granulated sugar and lime zest. Mix on medium speed for about 1-2 minutes
- Next, add in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and beat on medium speed until well combined, smooth and creamy; about 1-2 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the bowl of the electric mixer and beat on medium-low speed just until combined. Next add in the white chocolate chunks and chopped macadamia nuts. Mix on low speed until just combined.
- Use a cookie scoop to grab about 2 tablespoons of dough and roll into balls. Place on a plate or platter, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 1 hour or up to overnight. If you are super eager, place it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
- Once ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Let your dough balls sit at room temp for 15-20 minutes while your oven preheats so they are not overly cold when you go to bake them.
- Place dough balls on baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies 9-11 minutes or until the edges of the cookies begin to turn golden brown. They will look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven. Bake longer if you like crispier cookies, but I do not recommend.
- Cool the cookies on the sheets for at least 5 minutes. Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets after a few minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Makes about 20 cookies.
Recipe Notes
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
25 comments
Cant wait to make this soon for me can i use vegan butter i never had key lime cookies before perfect for my after office snacks love your recipes as always brightens up my day everyday after work
Enjoy! Hope you love them 🙂
These look delish!! Can you use almond flour instead of all purpose white flour?
I don’t recommend it!
Super tasty flavor but a little on the dry side. Hard to create balls after an 4 hour chill (even after 45 minutes out of the fridge). Added Graham cracker crumbs but I think that may be what made them too dry. Next time, i would just lightly roll in Graham cracker crumbs.
Not sure why they might have been too dry, Loz. Did you change anything about the recipe? Rolling them in the graham crackers sounds like a great idea.
Thank you for another beautiful recipe! The cookies taste delicious, but my dough was a crumbly mess. I had to squeeze it to get it to form into something resembling balls. Any thoughts on this? We ate them with forks and all was well in the world but would love to try again with a more aesthetically pleasing result.
Hi Annie – I am so glad that the flavor of these cookies turned out great for you. Did you change anything about the recipe?
These were insanely good! Shared with friends and neighbors who all raves about them!
Ahh yum! I am so glad these are a hit 💚
Made these and the flavor is great! I may add even more zest next time. The dough was very crumbly and hard to form – so the balls didn’t flatten out much in the oven. Still tasted great though!
I am so glad you are loving the flavor of these cookies. Did you change anything about the recipe that might have caused the dough to be crumbly?
Delicious! I made these gluten free by using
One cup of all purpose gluten-free flour and 1 & 1/4 cups of oat flour with 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum.
Also, I didn’t have fresh limes, so I used True Lime packets. 12 of them gave it the perfect lime flavor.
I made them with 2 tablespoons of dough, rolled and chilled as directed. After setting out of the fridge for 20 minutes before baking I had to bake them an extra 2 to 3 minutes to make sure the middle was done. I find Gluten-free cookies always differ from regular cookies with the baking times.
I will definitely make these again! They were a big hit at my house! Thank you for the recipe. We loved it!
Glad to hear that the subs worked well, Debi! Thanks for sharing 🙂
These were great! I actually found it to be a pretty wet dough so I chilled overnight to help them not flatten too much in baking. Would add more lime zest or juice next time since the white chocolate kind of masks the lime.
Sounds delicious, glad these turned out great for you and you’re loving them ❤️
I made these as a surprise birthday present for my brother-in-law and he absolutely loved them! The first batch tasted good but didn’t spread at all the way I had hoped, so I let my boyfriend have that batch to his delight, and the second batch spread much better so I reserved that batch as the birthday gift. The dough was a little trickier to get together but that’s likely my fault for thinking I could get away with subbing white chocolate chips because I couldn’t find a white chocolate bar anywhere. In any case, these cookies were a success!
Happy to hear these were a hit, Hillary!
YAY! So glad you loved these cookies and they turned out amazing for you!
Monique, do you think I could make the dough and put it into an 8×8 pan and bake like brownies/bar cookies? Thanks!
Hi! Hmmm I think that could work – just be sure that the dough isn’t looking overly thin or thick, and be mindful of the bake time. Better to underbake than overbake, so check for slightly golden edges!
These came out really dry. I made a different batch that didn’t have browned butter and it was great. Maybe add more butter if you are going to brown it.
So strange! I’ve never had an issue with dryness after browning butter. I’m glad the second batch turn out well!
These cookies are delicious, but it’s only a hint of lime. I’d double or maybe even triple the lime zest.
Feel free to add more if you like a big punch of lime!