merrifood

Nutella sea salt cookies

Posted by merrifood on November 22, 2012 · 4 Comments 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  For the first time in my life, I sadly am not able to cook or bake on a Thanksgiving as I have to be here in Manila working.  I am pretty bummed out about it but at least I got a solid chunk of time to cook and bake a week ago, and I plan on just making a massive Christmas meal that would be the same as a Thanksgiving one.  However, this does mean that I don’t have anything seasonal or Thanksgiving-y to share with you at the moment (and believe me, I have some great recipes…but they shall have to wait).

So what could possibly be as good as Thanksgiving recipes?  NUTELLA.  Nutella-themed baked goods are the best and I staunchly challenge anyone to say otherwise.  Yes, nutella goes more towards the milk chocolate family than the dark chocolate one, but I absolutely can not resist it.  Although I like it spread on bread or graham crackers or pretzels (worst/best idea ever: dunking pretzel sticks into a jar of nutella for a late-night snack), I actually may enjoy it the most when it has a distinct presence in various baked goods.  These cookies are amazing, particularly for the amount of time that they take to put together.  There is no butter in the recipe and waiting for butter to soften is such a time sink, so the dough comes together in literally minutes, but the cookies taste refined and sophisticated and utterly delicious.  Had enough of pumpkin and apple pie?  Make these for a dose of chocolate around the holidays – you will not regret it.

Nutella sea salt cookies (adapted from Fuss Free Cooking)

Makes 20 or so…I must confess I lost track since I was eating the dough and the cookies right when they came out of the oven (no self control, especially not after 2 months away from baking)

Ingredients

• 1 cup Nutella (oh yeah, a whole cup)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 50g/2 ounces dark chocolate bar, chopped up
• A pinch of salt
• Sea salt flakes

Preheat oven to 190 C / 375 F.  Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set aside (or spray with nonstick spray lightly).  Mix all the ingredients together.  Seriously, it’s that easy.  Then take out balls of the dough and put them on the sheet, making sure to leave space in between them as the dough flattens quite a bit while baking.  I only put about 8-10 per sheet.  Put in the oven and begin to enjoy the heavenly smell.  After about 7 minutes, open up the oven, take the sheets out, and sprinkle sea salt over the still slightly gooey cookies (this is the best way to get the sea salt to stick).  Rotate the tray and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so.  Total baking time should be between 10-15 minutes – the cookies will look a teeny bit golden around the edges and on the tops.  Take out of the oven, wait 2-3 agonizing minutes for them to cool just a bit, and then enjoy.  Leave the rest to cool completely and store in foil or an airtight container for treats over the next couple days.  But let’s be honest, if you’ve gone 2-3 days and all the cookies are not gone yet, you either haven’t made them correctly, you haven’t put them out in a public area, or you just have a disgusting amount of self control.

Making the dough.  As you can see, it’s just a whole bunch of nutella that you mix a few things into.

Adding the chocolate chunks to the dough…oh yeah

Generous sprinkling of sea salt on the top makes them all the better.  Seriously, you can’t beat the combination of sea salt with anything chocolate/Nutella influenced

Completed cookies getting ready to be packaged and brought into the office!

This was definitely a triumphant return to baking for me and an excellent way to break my painfully long baking fast.  If you have a jar of nutella around and you are concerned you may eat it all, make these pronto…and you’ll find these are even better than just having some nutella on its own!