The chocolate and hazelnut cookies are delicious soft cookies and buttery, very easy to make, possibly the best I’ve ever tasted; they have a delightful crunchy crust on the outside and are soft in the center, plus they are very rich in chocolate.
The recipe is very easy and does not require special ingredients, you will need eggs, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and flavors for the base which you will enrich with milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and toasted hazelnuts (or other nuts of your choice).
The recipe is by Nicolas Paciello, a renowned French pastry chef, and it is truly perfect. I made it following his instructions found in the book “Le carnet des recettes qui déchire” replacing pecans with hazelnuts due to an allergy I’ve had for many years. I spent the past weeks preparing delicious Christmas cookies and decided to start the year by gifting you with the recipe for a truly exquisite cookie.
Currently, crumbl cookies are all the rage on the web but I preferred to start with a simple version that is prepared in little time, less elaborate and demanding.
Before moving on to the procedure, here are some cookies to try:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Medium
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 25 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Electric oven
- Cuisine: American
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, and Spring
- Energy 196.80 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 20.25 (g) of which sugars 12.36 (g)
- Proteins 2.75 (g)
- Fat 12.21 (g) of which saturated 5.96 (g)of which unsaturated 5.82 (g)
- Fibers 1.38 (g)
- Sodium 40.95 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 40 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter (soft)
- 1 egg (about 55 g at room temperature)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup toasted hazelnuts (the original recipe uses pecans)
- 1 cup 60% dark chocolate
- 2/3 cup milk chocolate
- 1 pinch Maldon salt (fine salt is also fine)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Tools
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Sieve
- 1 Hand whisk
- 1 Cutting board
- 1 Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
Procedure
Sift the flour with the baking powder.
Chop the chocolate into cubes and coarsely chop the toasted hazelnuts.
Use a hand whisk to work the soft butter with the sugar and salt, it should not whip but just become light and frothy.
Incorporate the egg and vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients (flour and baking powder) mixing everything well to obtain a homogeneous mixture.
Add the chocolate cubes and coarsely chopped hazelnuts. I mix this phase by hand because the mixture is very rich and cannot be worked with whisks.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Form 40 g balls and flatten them to a thickness of 3/4 inch. You will get 25.
Place them on the sheets well spaced and put them in the fridge for 1 hour (do not skip this step, it is essential to avoid them deforming during baking and becoming flat).
Preheat the oven to 375°F in static mode.
Bake the sheets for 12/14 minutes or until golden, turning them after 6/7 minutes, this way you will have even cooking. Keep in mind that the longer you bake them, the crunchier they will become.
The chocolate and hazelnut cookies are ready, let them cool and serve.
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Tip: If they tend to spread a lot during baking, you can use a trick some bakers use, take out the baking sheet after 6/7 minutes, place a 4-inch steel cookie cutter around a cookie and rotate it, this way it will regain its original shape. Do the same with all the cookies trying to take as little time as possible, then bake the cookies again until fully cooked.
Tips
Storage
The chocolate and hazelnut cookies can be stored for 1 week in a tin container.
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