You could do your morning weight workout with these heavy cookies and promptly balance it all out by eating the cookies. But it would be worth it, obviously, for the chew and the nuttiness and the big, satisfying mouthful. These are cookies that mean it. You could make this recipe with other nuts, but the love story between the pistachios and creamy lemon filling here is real. Add to it the pretty green color in both the cookie and the nuts around the filling and you’ve got A-plus tone-on-tone aesthetic.

Method:

• Heat the oven to 375°F 190°C (170°C fan). Line two sheet pans with parchment paper.
• In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the butter, 1 cup (200 grams) of the granulated sugar, and the brown sugar and mix on medium until creamy and combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla and almond extracts, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed to ensure that everything combines evenly. Stop the mixer and sprinkle in the pistachios and flour. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt evenly over the pistachios and flour and give the ingredients a rough little whisk to combine, then turn the mixer on low to incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
• Place the remaining 6 tablespoons (75 grams) granulated sugar in a shallow bowl or rimmed plate. Scoop out rounded 2-tablespoon (50-gram) balls, roll them in the sugar to coat, and place on the prepared sheet pans (baking trays), 3 inches (about 7cm) apart, spacing out 7 cookies per pan. (You’ll need to bake these in batches.) Flatten to a ½ -inch (1cm) height with a fork to create a crosshatch pattern.
• Bake until very lightly browned; begin checking for doneness at 9 minutes. Let cool on the pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. For the best results, bake one pan at a time in the center of the oven. If you’re short on time, you can bake two pans at a time, on the upper middle and lower middle racks, switching each pan to the other rack and rotating the pans 180 degrees a little over halfway through the bake time.
• To make the filling, in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the butter, pistachios, powdered sugar, salt, and lemon zest and mix on low until you’re confident that sugar won’t fly everywhere, then gradually increase the speed to medium high and continue to mix until smooth and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the almond extract and mix to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure that everything combines evenly.
• Spread or pipe the undersides of half the cookies with a thick layer of filling going almost all the way to the edges and sandwich with the underside of the remaining cookies, pressing so the filling smooshes to the edges. Roll the edges in the ground pistachios.
• Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week or so. Unbaked balls of dough that have been rolled in sugar can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen and add a few minutes to the baking time.

Recipe extracted from Sweet Farm (Cookies, Cakes, Salads (!), and Other Delights from My Kitchen on a Sugar Beet Farm (William Morrow)

Read more about Molly Yeh – here.