Pistachio Butter Cookies spiced with bright orange zest and aromatic cardamom are delicious and so easy to make. They have a wonderful and extremely special flavor profile that will transform your mood and elevate your everyday sweet moment.
Alright ladies and gents, ready for another pistachio recipe? Get your homemade pistachio butter ready cuz today we’re making these super easy and extremely tasty Pistachio Butter Cookies. The batter calls for both pistachio butter and ground pistachio to make sure you’ll get double the flavor. They bake up to a pretty green color, and they look just beautiful with a light dusting of powder sugar.
I don’t know why, but every time I make something with pistachio, I have to sneak in a little cardamom and orange. These Pistachio Butter Cookies are spiced with bright orange zest and aromatic cardamom. Cardamom itself has citrusy character so it goes really well with orange zest. The flavor of these cookies are just so so special, wonderful, exceptional, top, no words can describe! And you wouldn’t believe how easy they are to whip up.
How to Make Pistachio Butter Cookies
We always start with real unsalted butter. And for this cookie dough we also add a heap of our homemade pistachio butter! Because these are called Pistachio Butter Cookies after all. We use light brown sugar to keep everything soft and chewy. No need to rub the orange zest into sugar this time since brown sugar is not exactly convenient for doing that. Beating everything together should release the oil well enough. Egg and vanilla extract go in next. And then the dry ingredients. That’s it!
This cookie dough is also very easy to handle. We should be able to divide and roll it into balls without any issue. One batch should make about 18 dough balls approximately 1 ¼ oz each. For exact measurement, we always use a kitchen scale. There is no need to flatten the dough, just let them spread on their own during baking.
A note about vanilla, we have many layers of flavor in this cookie but vanilla is equally important. It enhances the flavor of our baked goods even though it is not the main spice. Just like salt, a tiny bit is always added to enhance the overall flavor. Without these supporting ingredients, we can risk a delicious cookies coming out a bit flat in taste.
Every time I test a new cookie recipe, it automatically becomes my favorite cookies. But truly though, these Pistachio Butter Cookies are definitely my favorite cookies. They pack in so many of my favorite things, pistachio, orange and cardamom! These spiced cookies are so perfect with their bright and warm flavors. I guarantee you won’t eat just one.
More Pistachio Please!
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment, rate it and don’t forget to tag me @wildwildwhisk on Instagram. I’d love to see what’s cooking up in your kitchen. Cheers!
📖 Recipe card
Pistachio Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 4 ounce unsalted butter
- ½ cup pistachio butter
- ¾ cup light brown sugar
- Zest of a small orange
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon cardamom
- ½ cup ground pistachio
Instructions
- Melt butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
- Combine flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cardamom, and ground pistachio in a small bowl and whisk to distribute evenly.
- In a stand mixer bowl, combined cooled melted butter with pistachio butter, brown sugar and orange zest, beat with the paddle attachment for 1 minute until combined.
- Add egg, and vanilla extract, beat for another minute until combined.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and stir until incorporated.
- Refrigerate the cookie dough for about 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 18 portions, about 1 ¼ oz each. Roll into balls and refrigerate while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Place dough balls on a parchment lined cookie sheet about 2 inches apart and bake for 11 minutes in the middle oven rack.
- Remove from the oven and place baking sheet on a wire rack.
- Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving the cookies on to the wire rack to cool completely.
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Ingrid
Hello Trang!
I’m getting ready to make this recipe. I have one question, is the light brown sugar “firmly packed” or just lightly? Also, I noticed that in some of your other recipes have metric measurements and I thank you for that. Please do it for this one too.
Trang Doan
Hi Ingrid, use firmly packed for brown sugar or use 150 g. As I go through and update older recipes I will update the measurements with metric, just lots I haven’t gotten to including this one. Hope this help, let me know if any other questions come up.
Moop
If I use white sugar instead, will it create a crunchy cookie (or is this a bad idea…too crunchy. Or dry, et cetera)?
Trang Doan
You can use white sugar but yes it will be crunchier and not as chewy. It will be a little dryer but I think it will still be good. But if you like chewier cookies, I would stay with brown sugar.
Iris Maxwell
Like one other person, I put 1/4 cup of butter for the 4 ounces. The cookies are a little dense because of that. The last five I baked separately, I flatten and they turned out better. The flavor is great! This is the first time I’ve used pistachio butter. I didn’t have pistachios to grind; so I put in ground pecans. It worked. I’ll make it again as I do have enough pistachio butter left.
Caroline Perrington
Looks lovely it would be nice to have weights in ozs not cups for uk readers thanks
Trang Doan
Hi Caroline, I’ve been trying to go through and add weights but it takes time to retest the recipes to make sure so I haven’t got to some of the older recipes yet. Thanks!
Miriam
This recipe is so good and very easy. I substituted all purpose flour for almond flour and brown sugar for coconut light brown sugar. Amazing!
Theresa
delightful….my new favourite recipe!
w
I made these, but had one problem, The butter is listed in ounces. I’m used to seeing it either in tablespoons or grams. I didn’t pay attention and the number looked reasonable for tbsp, so I added 4 tbsp, sadly that’s about 1/2 of what the recipe calls for (no wonder I kept thinking the batter was too dry). As a result, they didn’t spread and I’m not sure they cooked all the way through. While they didn’t turn out great, they were good enough I’m going to try them again, this time with enough butter
4oz butter is the same measurement as 8 tbsp, 1/2 cup, or 1 stick (at least for how it’s packaged in the US)
also I’ve never used ground pistachios, I bought whole pistachios (no shells) and ran them though the food processor, I now realize I probably should have blanched and de-skinned them first, I think that also affected the taste. Or maybe Pistachio flour is a good substitute? a link or more explanation for a slightly uncommon ingredient would be a nice addition. even a picture of the raw ingredients before they were added would have helped.
Trang Doan
Thanks for your suggestions. Toasting the pistachio if they are raw before running them through the food processor would be a good idea to bring out their flavor, but if you get toasted pistachio, you can use them as is. I have not used pistachio flour before but I would imagine it to be very fine, which means the amount will differ. Though I prefer ground pistachios for a little more texture, I think it’s up to your preference and if you want to experiment with the flour.
Debs
It would be nice to have the option to have the recipes in the metric system! 🙂 – Just a suggestion
Debora Parrine
I mean, *also* in the metric system 😀
Trang Doan
Certainly, I’ve started adding metric to newer posts and slowly going through older posts to add but it takes time since I have to retest everything to make sure the measurements are accurate. So it may be a while before all of the posts get updated, but I do get a lot of requests for this! 🙂
Jonathan Blumenthal
I made this with a King Arthur gluten free flour and they came out perfect! They are a real gourmet specialty cookie that anyone would love! Thanks!
Trang Doan
Thank you so much! Happy to hear it works great with KA gluten free flour.
Norien
I made these cookies after searching on google. I had pistachio butter I wanted to use and love all things pistachio.
I am not a baker and its only the second time I have baked anything. The cookies are amaazing. Just perfect and easy to make for anyone. If I managed to make them then anyone can.
Trang
Thank you so much Norien! I’m happy to hear you made them successfully, keep on baking 🙂
Bayan
I’m in love with these cookies. I used less sugar a little less than half a cup and it tastes awesome. I cover it with toasted coconut and drizzle little melted dark chocolate on top.
Trang
So glad you love them! The addition of coconut and melted chocolate sound fantastic!
Andrew Leader
Oh my gosh, SO GOOD!! My favorite cookie on my first try! I swapped the ground pistachios for more pistachio butter (since I made all my pistachios into pistachio butter), and I omitted the orange zest. I also skipped refrigerating, and I used vegan butter. They turned out so soft, chewy, tasty, and perfect! I could eat the cookie dough for days!
Trang
Thanks Andrew!! So glad you enjoyed these 🙂 🙂 🙂
Jackie
Hello! Is the pistachio butter supposed to be the roasted and salted one, or the raw and unsalted one?
Trang
Hi Jackie, I used raw and unsalted pistachio to make homemade pistachio butter. If you’re getting a jar, definitely go with the raw and unsalted.
Hannah
I had a just-expired (unopened) jar of Oro Verde Pistachio cream in my cupboard that needed to be used. It’s more of a Nutella-like texture than actual pistachio butter (nuts, sugar and some oil), maybe a bit thicker. I used the entire 180 g jar, but otherwise followed your recipe exactly. Not surprisingly, the cookies spread out more than the ones in your photos, but the texture and flavour were outstanding. I would make these again, using actual pistachio butter. Thanks for the recipe!
Trang
Excellent Hannah, great use of a substitution 🙂
Majed Jazairi
Hi, this recipe sounds great, would love to try it, but it would be soooo much easier if you could provide the recipe amounts in weight (grams) rather than in cups and ounces…
Thank you very much x
Trang
Hi Majed, I’m really sorry but when I developed this recipe I took all my measurement in oz and cups. I do not have gram measurement available but you can always convert oz to gram weight, but cups are in volume (1 cup = 8 oz in volume or 237 ml).
Pavithra
I love anything with cardamom in it and I was very excited to try this recipe. I made these today for the first time and the first batch got burned at the bottom 🙁 I baked the second batch for 9 minutes, took out tray waited for a few minutes flipped the cookies and baked for another 3 minutes. After cooling, they are still a touch soft in the middle.
Trang
Hi Pavithra, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. When I made these, I didn’t need to flip them at all. Oven temperature varies so that could be a problem. If it’s burning, I think your oven temperature may be a tad hotter than mine, try lowering it by 25 degrees and bake for the same amount of time. Another thing that may help is using an insulated baking sheet so the bottom doesn’t burn quickly.
Pavithra
I loved the flavor combinations. I’ll check my oven temperature next time but I don’t think it is that because I just baked french macarons for the first time and they came out fine. Are they supposed to be a little soft on the inside?
Sugar Salt Magic Emails
Your truly are the pistachio queen. I’ve been checking out all your pistachio recipes and I want to make them all – these cookies included. I love the addition of cardamom
Trang
Thank you my dear!