Nutella Cookies

I was going to make macadamia cookies. I went to the store with that in mind. Then I saw the price of macadamias and had a change of heart.

So I started wandering the store, looking for ideas. I needed a few dozen cookies for a youth group event that night, and I wanted to do something a little different that would still appeal to kids.
I probably could have just grabbed a cookbook and found something, but I didn't have one handy. My wandering took me by the peanut butter, and that's when the jar of Nutella caught my eye. Actually, what caught my eye was that there was a store brand hazelnut spread with cocoa sitting there at about half the price.

When I got home, I went to Joy of Cooking and found the peanut butter cookie recipe. I exchanged the hazelnut spread for the peanut butter and went to work. The cookies turned out beautifully, though not quite like a peanut butter cookie. The hazelnut spread is thinner, so the cookies came out softer and more moist than what you might expect - a pleasant change, in my opinion. The flavor wasn't as intense as a peanut butter cookie either, so it turned out more like a chocolate cookie with a little hazelnut in the background. Overall, I enjoyed them, and the kids were excited about Nutella cookies and seemed to enjoy them as well. As an added bonus, I have a treat to spread on my fresh bread for the next few days.

Nutella Cookies (adapted from Joy of Cooking)

Dry ingredients
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup Nutella
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg + 1 yolk
1 tbsp vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients. Mix all wet ingredients except egg and vanilla until well blended and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. When well combined, mix in dry ingredients until the dough is well combined and smooth. Chill dough for 10-15 minutes to make it easier to work with.

Pull off a piece of dough about the size of a large marble and roll it between your hands until roughly round. It doesn't have to be perfect, since they will spread out in the oven. Bake at 350 on a greased or, preferably, parchment-lined, cookie sheet for about twelve minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the cooking time. You can't really tell by color when they are done, but they should hold their shape if you move them. Let cookies cool for a couple of minutes on the pan, then put on a cooling rack for as long as you can wait to eat them.

The one step you may have noticed is missing from this is the cross-hatching of the dough with a fork. You can always tell a homemade peanut butter cookie from this marking, but this dough doesn't really hold up to it. I tried it a few times, even freezing a fork hoping it would help the dough stay firm enough, but it is just too soft.