Today’s sweet recipe: hazelnut heart cookies.

Delicious cookies with a fragrant cocoa shortcrust shell that encloses a heart of hazelnut spread and a whole round hazelnut, nothing else needs to be added.

Indulgent and perfect for an afternoon snack, they can also be a very cute gift idea by packaging them in a nice tin box along with other cookies. Easy and quick to prepare, hazelnut hearts will make a great impression in your home, and you won’t stop making them, they are delicious.

The base of these cookies is shortcrust pastry, prepared with the classic method and butter, with the addition of cocoa, cut and then filled with Nutella that certainly needs no introduction, and in the center a delicious whole hazelnut. Prepared and then baked in the oven.

Now let’s see together, step by step, how to make this recipe.

Ingredients

300 g all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 yolk
100 g sugar
125 g butter
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 pinch baking powder
1 pinch salt
as needed hazelnut spread
30 whole hazelnuts (approximately)

Tools

1 Scale
1 Rolling Board
1 Cookie Cutter

Let’s Make Cookies Together

First of all, we need to prepare the filling. To ensure it is creamy when we eat it, we need to take half a teaspoon of hazelnut spread and place it on a sheet of parchment paper, then position a hazelnut in the center. Do this 30 times and then place the fillings in the freezer to solidify.
Let’s move on to preparing the shortcrust pastry. On a work surface, place the flour in a fountain shape and add the cold butter, cut into pieces, working them into a sandy texture. Reform a fountain and add the other ingredients, then knead quickly. Wrap the obtained dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.
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Take the cocoa shortcrust pastry, divide it in half, and roll it out to a thickness of about half a centimeter. Use a round cookie cutter to cut out 30 discs and place them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.
In the center of each disc, place a disc of hazelnut spread that we previously prepared and froze. Then roll out the other half of the shortcrust pastry and cut out another 30 discs to cover. Seal the edges of the hazelnut hearts well to prevent them from opening during baking.
Bake in a preheated oven at a temperature of 350°F for 13/15 minutes. Let them cool, then enjoy your cookies. While waiting for them to cool a bit, snap a photo of your hazelnut hearts and post it on social media, tagging me (una riccia che pasticcia on Instagram and Facebook) and let me know how many you plan to eat!