Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

with hazelnut cocoa butter swirl

I’m writing this newsletter from my grandparent’s couch on a farm in a teeny town in Eastern North Carolina. The boys and I are heading back to New Jersey after our winter spent lounging in the sun in Florida and, while our snow-birding time was sweet, I can’t wait to be back in my house and back into my routine. As we continue to drive further north, the temperatures have started to drop and the skies are getting a little gloomier. Sometimes I forget that February is still winter and I have at least another month or so of cold before the beginnings of spring will arrive.

All of this cold gloominess makes me crave cookies. Specifically, warm and cozy cookies. Giant warm and cozy cookies, with the deepest chocolate dough, stuffed with roasted hazelnuts and puddles of melted chocolate. A batch of dark chocolate hazelnut cookies to warm me from the inside out.

about the recipe

I developed this base recipe back in college for my now husband. I started playing around with Levain Bakery-esque cookies (big! thick! gooey!) and ended up spiking them with extra dark chocolate and coconut for Martin. They were a fast favorite and I’ve now used the base for many, many more cookie iterations. These were developed with my best friend/sister-in-law in mind, who loved Nutella so much she used to dip carrots in it in college. While she no longer does that, every time I see a jar of Nutella I think of her.

I used toasted hazelnuts (you could use any nut you’d like) and chopped dark chocolate in this recipe. I also swirled in a couple of spoonfuls of this fancy Italian chocolate hazelnut spread, but you can use Nutella or another brand that you like. As I always recommend with my cookie recipes—don’t skip the chill time. It helps the dough sufficiently hydrate and keeps your cookies from spreading into pancakes in the oven. :)

dark chocolate hazelnut cookies

makes 12-14 large cookies