This is perhaps my favorite drop cookie.  It’s just the right balance of cocoa, butter, sweet, and crunch.  I love it for an afternoon treat with coffee.
The base recipe is the same as in my Soft Homemade Oreo, but the addition of lots of walnuts creates a very different cookie.  This is a straight forward drop cookie, but a few techniques make the difference in the texture of this cookie.  I will add a few extra photos and baking tips to this recipe.  The recipe is at the end, so just scroll down to see it and get mixing that dough.
One tip is to use a scale when measuring ingredients — especially flour.  I also recommend giving your dry ingredients a sift to blend them and remove any lumps.  This way you’ll be better protected from over-mixing the dough after adding the dry ingredients to the sugar/butter/egg mixture.
Another tip is to size the dough balls evenly and appropriately for the recipe.  This is important, as it will affect both the baking time and the texture of a great drop cookie — soft in the middle and crispy on the edges.  For this cookie, I use a 1/4 cup portion scoop.  Not only does this create the best size cookie for this recipe, it’s fast.
And one last tip.  For this cookie, coarsely chopped walnuts are important.  They provide structure to the cookie.  If you’re not a fan of walnuts, please see my prior post for Soft Homemade Oreos.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Walnut Cookie

1 1/4 cups white flour ( 6.5 oz)
3/4 cup cocoa (2.5 oz)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter (8 oz), soft but not melted
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed (5.5 oz)
3/4 cup white sugar (5.5 oz)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups (8 oz.) coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.

In mixing bowl, cream butter until smooth.  Add sugars and beat until fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth   Add dry ingredients and walnuts and mix until just blended.  Give the dough one or two scrapes with a spatula to be sure there aren’t any streaks of dry ingredients.  Drop 1/4 cup balls of dough on baking sheet, allowing room around each for spread.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes.  They are done when the middles are puffed and still a bit soft, but the edges are set.  Allow to cool on the baking sheet for a couple minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.