Chocolate Cookies with Hazelnut Filling
A lovely small batch recipe for chocolate shortbread sandwich cookies. The filling is a bit like a white chocolate Nutella and is made with roasted hazelnuts, almonds and white chocolate. They’re a great holiday if you’re looking to switch up your usual cookie routine! (They’re also great whenever… no need to restrict cookies to the holidays am I right?)
Note: the filling makes more than you need but it’s delicious on ice cream, on toast or by the spoon full.
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 75 g butter room temperature
- 40 g sugar
- 75 g flour
- 23 g cocoa powder
- pinch of salt
Filling:
- 1/3 cup of hazelnuts
- 1/3 cup of almonds
- 1/3 cup of white chocolate chips Try to get your hands on some good quality white chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F
- If your nuts aren’t pre-roasted then pour them into a baking tray and roast for 7-10 minutes until nicely toasted.
- Start making the cookie dough by first creaming the butter by itself in a standing mixer with the beater attachment. Then add the sugar and keep beating until nice and fluffy.
- Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt into the butter mixture and then mix together with a spatula. It will look like dry bread crumbs at first but keep mixing and you’ll see the mixture start clumping together. Bring the dough together by hand at the end and shape it into a ball. Place it in a bowl, cover, and refrigerate while you make the filling.
- Puree the nuts either in a food processor or using an immersion blender. This will take a few minutes but after a while you should see that the nuts begin to look creamy instead of crumbly. Add in the white chocolate and blend again until smooth. Set aside the filling.
- Roll out the cookie dough between two sheets of parchment paper. I like relatively thin cookies but note that they won’t rise in the oven so don’t go too crazy thin.
- Cut out 12 circles with a round cookie cutter (I used a 2 and 1/4 inch cutter). If you want the star cut-outs in the top cookie then use a small star cookie cutter to cut out stars from half of the circles. If the cookie dough gets too soft while you’re working with it then just pop it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes until it firms up again.
- Place the cookies on a lined baking tray (I use a silicone mat but you could also use the parchment paper you rolled the cookies out with). Let the cookies firm up for 10 minutes in the fridge before baking.
- Bake for 12 minutes at 350 F and then let them cool.
- Once cool spread the filling over half the cookies and sandwich with the other half. You can also just spread the filling on one side and then dip the cookie in sprinkles if you don’t want to sandwich them!
Notes
Notes:
1) These cookies are pretty crumbly which is delicious but it can make assembly tricky. If a cookie breaks don’t sweat it just piece it back together when you make the sandwich and the filling will hold the pieces in place.
2) The rest of the filling should be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. If it gets too hard just microwave it for a few seconds until it softens up again.