Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are truly a legend to behold. If not for the tender crumb and crispy edges, then surely because of the warm gooey chocolate hazelnut center. Nutella, you may be wondering? ...No, it's even better. Nocciolata gave us some free samples of their product to use in baking (or plain eating with a spoon). You may recall Caroline using this organic hazelnut spread in her exquisite and beautifully braided bread, and now, I present to you...perhaps a less daunting endeavor that incorporates Nocciolata (or any filling of your choice, for that matter).

Cookies! (Read on.)

I really am a firm believer of cookies dipped in milk. It makes the experience that much more divine.

Here's a close up of the Nocciolata spread that I bet you were dying to take a look at. It took every ounce of my self-control not to eat all of the Nocciolata in order to have enough for the cookie filling. Which is--let's not kid ourselves--basically the whole point of making these cookies.

The Nocciolata filling really takes spotlight in these cookies. Be generous with the dollops. You'll thank me later.

Really, how could you not drool after seeing these photos? I'm daydreaming of when I can make these cookies again. They're soft and tender straight from the oven, with an intense gooey chocolate hazelnut center. Let them cool to room temperature, and it gets even better. The cookies acquire a soft and chewy texture that'll last for days afterward, and that's truly a selling point for me (along with the addicting lingering aroma of a cookie that lures helpless cookie-lover victims from close and afar).

Not that I'm saying these cookies will be around for that long though. As an experiment, I tried saving one single cookie in a jar for as long as possible, prohibiting my brother or anyone else from eating it. It was a pretty excruciating experience for everyone involved, staring at the one lone piece of cookie in the jar for all those days. But hey, who said it's easy to get the facts? Now you know.

These cookies smell amazing. More than the usual amazing of a cookie smell. I think it's the Organic Coconut Sugar from Trader Joe's that I used in this recipe. I've never smelled anything quite like it, and I think I could smell the sugar all day. Heh.

Cheers,
Monica

Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Love & Olive Oil, originally from Savory Sweet Life

Yield: 20 cookies | Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients
1/4 cup Nutella, cookie butter, or filling of choice
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup (12 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips


Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar for 3 minutes on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Then add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour. Mix by hand or on low speed until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Scoop a heaping tablespoon of dough (or medium cookie scoop). Divide and place half of dough ball on prepared baking sheet. Drop a generous dollop of desired filling into center, then top with the other half of dough. Press to seal in the filling. Arrange on baking sheet with at least 2 inches of space between each cookies. (They will spread while baking.) Bake for 10 to 11 minutes, or until centers are just set and edges are golden. Cool, serve, and enjoy!

Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

I've always wanted to make peanut butter cookies. Charming in its simplicity, yet undeniably delicious. And addicting. These make your house smell like peanut butter heaven, and one bite into the soft and chewy cookie leaves you pining for some more. And pretty soon, you'll find that all the cookies are mysteriously gone...

These cookies not only have a soft chewy crumb inside, but also have a subtle crispy sugar coating and criss-cross pattern top. See? Pretty and yummy. Who said perfection isn't possible?

Here's how you do it:

Thoroughly cream the butter and peanut butter.

Add the sugars (granulated sugar and brown sugar). Beat thoroughly. Add the egg. Beat thoroughly.

Add milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt).

Add the Reese's peanut butter cups (or peanut butter chips) and chocolate chips. In retrospect, I feel like it wouldn't have hurt if I'd added more Reese's peanut butter cups than I did.

Now make tablespoon-sized cookie dough balls, toss in granulated sugar, and make prominent criss-cross patterns with a fork. I arranged my cookies too closely together in the photo above. In my later batches, I placed only 5 - 6 cookies per sheet. Bake & enjoy!

Love,

Monica

Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, originally from Magnolia Bakery Cookbook
Yield: 25 cookies

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg, preferably at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup peanut butter chips (or Reese’s peanut butter cups, chopped into halves)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
For sprinkling: 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and beat thoroughly.

Stir in the peanut butter chips (or Reese’s peanut butter cups) and chocolate chips. Place the 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar into a small bowl. Scoop the cookie dough into tablespoon-sized balls and toss in sugar until lightly coated.

Place onto cookie sheet, leaving a good 3 to 4 inches of space between each cookie for expansion (I fit 5 - 6 cookies comfortably onto a sheet). Using a fork, make a criss cross pattern indentation on each cookie, but do not overly flatten the cookies.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes. Do not over-bake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not. Enjoy!

Linzer Heart Cookies

I'm going to really honest here for a second. I made these cookies for one reason, and one reason only: I needed to do a cutesy Valentine's Day post for today.

That being said, I do love these cookies. Flaky, buttery, sandwiched with sweet and tart rhubarb (yes, rhubarb!) jam, what's not to love? But I did make the cookies last week of all weekends for posting purposes. In fact, I even got up early so I could make them and take pictures while it was still light out, before I had to go to meetings in the afternoons. (And yes, I do need to set an alarm if I want to get up at 9:50 a.m. College life.)

It does make me wonder how many people make adorable pink baked goodies for Valentine's Day, and how much of it is food bloggers like me. I mean, I love seeing all the amazing Valentine and St. Patrick themed food on the web, but do people do it in real life?

But food blog existentialism aside, you really should make these cookies. If you're not into the cutesy Valentine thing, just change the shape of the cookies. This recipe is very similar to the shortbread I used for these Abbracci cookies, and they make wonderfully tender and delicious cookies.

a. linzer heart cookies 6.jpg

The shortbread pairs wonderfully with the rhubarb jam I used because it has more sour notes than some other flavors, but you can use whatever jam  you want. (Or even Nutella! Hey, it's Valentine's Day, treat yourself!)

So enjoy! Whether or not you celebrate Valentine's Day, you should make these cookies (:

-Caroline

Linzer Heart Cookies

Yields about 3 dozen sandwich cookies

Ingredients
For the Dough
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
2 egg yolks, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For Assembly
½ cup jam
¼ cup powdered sugar

 

Directions
Mix together the flour, cornstarch, and salt.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, and then the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Do not overmix.

Refrigerate the dough at least 1 hour, or overnight.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about half a centimeter thick. With a heart-shaped cookie cutter about 1 ½ inches wide (although any shape works!) to cut out the shapes. Place them on a greased baking sheet.

For half of the cookies, use a smaller cookie cutter to make a heart-shaped hole in the middle.

Gather up the scraps and re-roll the dough. Repeat steps 6 and 7. Continue this process until you run out of dough. Refrigerate the cookies for 1-2 hours.

Just before baking, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are barely golden.Let the cookies cool completely.

Sift powdered sugar over all the cookies that have a hole in the middle. Microwave the jam for 15-20 seconds, to thin it out. Spread about ½ teaspoon of jam on the remaining cookies. Top with a cookie that has a hole. 

Abbracci Cookies

Last year I took a class called Interracial Literature; we read Othello, Absalom! Absalom!, lots of other cool and somewhat bizarre stories, analyzed conceptions of racial difference. Every class, my professor would bring us black and white Italian cookies, which we liked to call interracial cookies.

This particular variety is called Abbracci, which is Italian for "hug."

a. abbracci cookies 2.jpg

It's a simple shortbread cookie, a piece of chocolate dough intertwined with a piece of vanilla. Like they're hugging each other!

Shortbread is wonderfully easy to make, and if you're new to baking this is a great recipe to start with.

This cookie recipe also has slightly less sugar than most; you can increase it by another tablespoon or so, but I wouldn't recommend. The cookies I had in Italy were flaky, buttery, and had the perfect amount of sweetness, unlike their American counterparts, which tend to be too sweet. Along those lines, don't leave out the salt. I've found that salt adds a wonder complexity and depth of flavor to baked goods; they don't make things salty, but they help round out the sweetness.

Key techniques to making tender shortbread cookies is 1) not over-mixing the dough (especially when you're mixing in the cocoa and Nutella) and 2) refrigerating the dough before baking them.

There's nothing complicated or fancy about these cookies, aside from the cool shape. They're a wonderfully simple and delicious cookie, buttery and crumbly, perfect with a cup of tea and a good book.

Enjoy!
​Caroline

Abbracci Cookies

Ingredients
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened
⅓ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon Nutell

 

Directions
With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light, pale, and fluffy. Whisk in the vanilla extract.

With a wooden spoon or spatula, stir in the salt. Add the flour and cornstarch and mix until just combined.

Remove about half of the dough from the bowl and set aside. To the remaining dough, add the cocoa powder and Nutella and mix until incorporated.

Divide the chocolate dough into 15 pieces. Do the same for the vanilla dough. With your hands, roll each piece of dough into a 2-inch log.

Join together one vanilla and one chocolate piece of dough with the ends overlapping, to form a circle. Do this for the remaining pieces of dough.

Place the cookies on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the cookies for 15-18 minutes. They will be barely golden around the edges.

Let cool and serve!