Earlier today I was challenged to decide the better cookie between Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Caramallows and straight up Mallomars. Anyone who knows me knows that is a challenge I will readily undertake. Times being what they are (6 days before Chrimbo) Trader Joe's is sold out of their Caramallows. The jolly employee in the elf hat was happy to tell me that the cookies would be back the third week of November, 2013. I have some time. If I did not have the new cookie to compare, there was NO way I was going to another store for the control cookie. Great, now all I can think about are cookies. And the bottle of wine I bought at Trader Joe's.
So I came home and decided to make a cookie off my Pinterest board. I have many, many, many, many Nutella recipes pinned and have only made one. I looked around and had all of the ingredients for Nutella cookies. Here they are:
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So get all that stuff plus some of these:
(mini semi-sweet chocolate chips) Actually, you should always have these on hand for emergency chocolate chip pancake purposes.
First you take a 1/2 cup of unsalted butter (I used salted and it was fine) at room temperature and throw it in your mixing bowl. I am always happy to use mine. Here she is in all of her splendor:
The recipe calls for beating the butter by itself until it is fluffy, but I totally spaced on that and added the 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of light brown sugar to the bowl while I was waiting for the butter to come to I-am-too-impatient-to-wait-for-the-butter-to-come-to-room-temperature-so-I-am-nuking-it-to-room-temperature and I think the cookies turned out fine.
Next, beat until the butter and sugars are light and fluffy:
Go Mix Master Go!
Next add one egg and 1/2 tsp of Frangelico. My Frangelico pouring hand got a little heavy so I think I added about 1 tsp. Not that you can tell, but Santa knows when you are lying so. . . . . .
Mix it up for a couple of minutes.
Next get out your Nutella and measure out 1/2 cup.
Looks good, right? Ok, here is another:
Make sure it is a heaping 1/2 cup because Nutella is known for sticking to measuring cups and you end up having to scrape out the remaining Nutella with your finger and eating it plain. I ended up adding another good two knife-fuls of Nutella because you just never know. And the world is supposed to end tomorrow.
Add to butter/sugar/egg/Frangelico mixture:
Now, in a small-ish bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt.
I know, pretty boring especially after the Nutella picture. And you cannot even make out the salt and baking powder but they are there.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the Nutella mixture:
And mix until combined.
Now, measure out 1/2 cup of mini-semi-sweet chocolate chips:
I think I may have over-done it by adding 3/4 cup but oh well, world ending tomorrow and what not.
Mix until combined.
Now get your mini scooper and scoop dough onto cookie sheet. Crap. Realize mini scooper is broken (silently blame your children), think a few swear words and throw out mini scooper. Stop making cookies and put mini scooper on your birthday list (does mini scooper need to be hyphenated?) Now, spoon out onto cookie sheet. Not sure if the cookie sheet needs to be greased or not but I use the Silpat so I do not need to grease. These are GREAT baking sheets.
Yes, I know they look like drops of poop but they are glorious Nutella cookies so shut up.
Bake at 350 for 6-7 minutes. The first batch I did for 6 mins and 15 seconds and they were a bit on the underdone side. The second batch I did for 6 mins 45 seconds and they were better.
Now for the verdict. They are very good but just not quite Nutella-y enough for me. So, being who I am, I took it upon myself to take the advice of one of the reviewers of the original recipe and create a Nutella sandwich Nutella cookie:
And because the above-mentioned wine said it was good with chocolate:
Much better as a sandwich. Would probably also be vair, vair tasty with vanilla ice cream. Going to enjoy before the little ones come home.
