Brownie cookies sandwiched with orange tahini cream (gluten free)

I have some news. I've left Dr D. Left him and moved back in with my mum.

It's been emotional and somewhat of a roller-coaster, since I feel both terrible and extremely happy about it all at the same time: terrible for leaving my husband; full of joy at being back with my mummatha!

Before anyone gets carried away, let me just clarify that the move is temporary and is no reflection whatsoever of my love for the wonderful Dr D. It's actually due to the fact that we've been having major work done on our house, which last week sent me over the edge: the cold; the mess; the filth and dust; three random workmen helping themselves to whatever they could find in our larder (wtf?!) and using our bathroom umpteen times a day... It all pushed my patience, and my OCD, to the limit.

So I had a mini tantrum, packed my bags and left poor Dr D to deal with it all whilst I sought comfort in the cosiness of my childhood home.

Being back at mum's is the best. I get cups of tea, dinner, mumma-bear hugs all on demand. In fact no, I don't even have to ask for them, they are lavished upon me! But as I already said, I do simultaneously feel terrible for leaving my poor hubby to deal with the chaos that is our house. The only conclusion we might draw from all this is that I'm evidently a rubbish wife. The going got tough, so I got going.

I figured, maybe if I baked these cookies for Dr D every day for the next year or so, perhaps that might make amends for my poor show? I've baked them twice so far and he definitely loved them, so I'm confident my strategic plan of action will work.

Seriously, these cookies are like crack cookies. They're squidgy and chewy and brownie-like in texture, and intensely chocolaty in taste, with a hint of tahini and orange in the cream filling, which perfectly complements the fudgy brownie-ness and nuggets of chocolate chunks. Be warned, they're ridiculously addictive and also stupidly easy to make, so you are liable to find yourself in a never-ending cycle of baking and scoffing, baking and scoffing. Personally, I don't think that's such a bad place to be. Beats being in a cold, dirty house, that's for sure.

Adapted from Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (aka Honey & Co - one of my all-time favourite restaurants!) Chocolate sandwich cookies filled with tahini cream 

Makes 6-7 sandwich cookies (or 12-14 single cookies)

For the cookies:

• 40g unsalted butter
• 250g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
• 2 large eggs
• 150g light brown soft sugar
• 20g cocoa powder
• 75g plain chocolate (50% cocoa), chopped into chunks

For the filling:

• 50g tahini (for the uninitiated, it comes as a paste in a jar and is available in most supermarkets)
• 60g full fat cream cheese
• 25g icing sugar
• Zest of one orange
• 50g double cream

Preheat the oven to 190C (fan) and line two baking sheets with baking parchment.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave or over a bain marie, then set aside to cool slightly.

Whilst the melted butter and chocolate are cooling, using a handheld electric whisk, whisk the eggs and sugar until thick, pale and mousse-like.

Now take a large metal spoon and use it to fold the melted butter-chocolate mixture into the eggs and sugar.

Once combined, add the cocoa powder and chocolate chunks and fold again until you have a light, chocolaty batter.

Use your large metal spoon to drop spoonfuls of the batter onto your lined baking sheets, leaving space between each cookie as they will spread during baking. Don't be alarmed if the mixture is quite runny - remember there's no flour to bring it all together, but when baked, it will solidify into a lovely chewy brownie-like cookie. You should get 12-14 mounds of cookie dough in total on your baking sheets.

Bake the cookies for 9 minutes, then remove them from the oven and allow them to cool completely on the tray before filling. You may find that, once cool, they've stuck a little to the baking parchment. If so, just slide a palette knife under them to separate them from the parchment.

To make the orange tahini cream, first beat the tahini and cream cheese together in a large bowl with a large metal or wooden spoon.

When smooth, add the icing sugar and beat again until smooth.

Next add the orange zest and mix to thoroughly combine.

Finally, add the cream and continue to beat just until the filling is smooth, creamy and able to hold its shape.

To assemble the sandwiches, pair the cookies and turn them so that the flat side is facing upwards.

Place a good dollop of filling in the centre of half of the upturned cookies and spread it gently towards the edges using an offset palette knife. Don't spread the cream right to the edges though as it will ooze out, so leave a small rim.

Place each matching cookie on top of the ones that have the cream on them and very gently press them together.

Your cookies are technically now ready to eat, but if you have the patience, I much prefer them after they've been chilled in the fridge and the cream filling has set a little. At this point, the unctuous gooey chocolatyness reaches new heights. They'll keep in the fridge for a few days.

Chewy triple chocolate chunk cookies

When it comes to chocolate chip cookies I have pretty exacting standards. Let’s examine:

1. They must be soft and chewy. A crisp outer edge is allowed, but beyond that, absolutely no crunchiness, no sand-like crumbliness (save it for shortbread), no sogginess and definitely no dryness please.
2. They must have a high chocolate chunk to cookie dough ratio. Let’s go with about 50:50 for the sake of argument.
3. Despite the name, I want sturdy, brick-like chocolate chunks populating my cookie - something with a bite, not barely-there chocolate chips that dissolve on the tongue before you’ve even realised they were in the cookie.
4. Like the chocolate it is studded with, the cookie should be chunky and solid. I want a body-builder of a cookie not a waif-like thin one.
5. Ideally they should be eaten with a big glass of cold milk for accompaniment, whilst one is in one’s pyjamas.

Sadly, I find it hard to get cookies that meet my requirements when frequenting cafes and coffee shops - even after I’ve made allowances for that fact that they probably won’t let me in in my pyjamas - so I was delighted when I visited Mast Brothers in Shoreditch, East London, a year or so ago. I found that they did the most amazing chocolate chip/chunk cookie I’d ever tried outside of homemade ones and that it met all of my criteria (at £3.50 a pop, there would have been a strong degree of indignation had it not). As there was no seating, I even got to take my precious cookie home and eat it whilst in the comfy-cosiness of my PJs. Good times!

Unfortunately, these good times were short-lived, as Mast Brothers closed their London shop earlier this year (I'm not sure why, other than maybe most people weren't willing to pay £3.50 for a cookie...?) I’d imagine they may still sell their cookies in their other shops, but this would require me flying all the way to the States to buy one. Suddenly £3.50 for a cookie is looking rather reasonable…

Oh well, I guess this means I’m back to square one when it comes to my perfect shop-bought cookie hunt. In the interim I continue to bake my own. The latest are these triple chocolate cookies. They deliver on points 1-4 of my criteria. I’m trusting you to deliver on point 5.

Adapted from Sainsbury's double chocolate cookies

Yields 24-25 cookies

• 250g unsalted butter, melted
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g light brown soft sugar
• 4 tbsp condensed milk (I used sweetened)
• 250g self-raising flour, sifted
• 100g cocoa, sifted
• Pinch of salt
• 300g plain, milk and/or white chocolate, cut into chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan oven).
2. 
   
3. Using an electric hand whisk or mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until they are fully combined.
4. 
   
5. Beat in the condensed milk, then add the flour, cocoa and salt, and beat again.
6. 
   
7. Stir in the chocolate chunks.
8. 
   
9. At this point, I always like to leave my cookie dough to chill in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, but preferably overnight (or even a couple of days if you wish), as it yields a chewier cookie, but if you don't have the time (or the patience!), you can skip the chilling and move straight on to shaping and baking.
10. 
    
11. Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and space at least 5cm apart on a baking sheet, then flatten a fair bit with the palm of your hand. I get about nine on a sheet and bake them in batches but if you want to bake on a couple of sheets at the same time, do so. Bake for about 12 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, they will still be very soft, especially in the middle, so don't pick them up right away. Instead, leave to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
13. 
    

Zaletti (Venetian biscuits)

Often, people who know me don’t realise that food/baking is not the only thing I am obsessed with. My other passion is languages, of which I speak four: my mother tongue, Urdu (albeit, I’m told, with a cut-glass English accent which has resulted in many an Urdu speaker laughing at me!); French (this time, I like to think, in a pretty authentic French accent, thanks to living in glorious Nice for a year); Spanish (you could hurl expletives at me all day in Spanish and I wouldn’t care, such is my love for this beautiful language); and of course, English (I acknowledge that if you’ve read previous blog posts, you might feel this last claim is pish-tosh!)

Once upon a time, I also spoke Italian. Sadly, consistent inconsistency in my studies of it meant that I soon forgot much of that which I’d learnt. The problem was only exacerbated when I began Spanish lessons. Now, as Dr D will testify, every time I open my mouth to try to speak even a few words of Italian, I instead, unfailingly, say something in español. Sigh, clearly my brain is not equipped to deal with two such similar languages.

The irony, of course, is that the country I’ve visited the most in the world is... yep, Italy. I’ve even broken my rule of never returning to the same place twice (too many other locations in the world that I still need to see) with repeat holidays to certain places there. Most recently I found myself in contravention of this self-imposed rule during a trip to Venice; in my defence, it was 11 years since my first holiday there, but still, my stricter self is not impressed with my more wayward self. Tsk!

As always when on holiday, I made it my mission to seek out authentic local foods in Venice. As an island, unsurprisingly it specialises in delicious fish and seafood, but let’s skip to the important bit: the sweet stuff! Aside from hot chocolate so thick it had to be eaten with a spoon, an incredible salted pistachio and gianduja flavoured gelato and a chocolate shop so good, I dragged Dr D back there three times, the sugary treat that stuck with me was Zaletti.

Zaletti are boat-shaped Venetian biscuits that could be found in every single pasticceria that we walked past. Needless to say, eventually I had to try one. Upon biting into it, I discovered that it was a buttery, crunchy, crumbly, currant and citrus-packed delight that melts in the mouth. So good was it that I came home and, after a little research into how to make them, made my own.

The crunchy texture of Zaletti comes from polenta (corn meal) being added to the dough. An additional, most satisfying crunch comes from a happy sprinkling of demerara sugar on top before baking. I understand that the biscuits can contain grappa, but to make mine non-alcoholic, I used orange juice instead, which really helps with both plumping up the currants and adding to the citrus scent of these delightful goodies. Zaletti are not very sweet; Italians apparently counter this by enjoying the biscuits with a glass of sweet wine, or dipped into some fruit coulis, but I felt they didn't need added sweetness from elsewhere and were rather satisfying simply dunked into a good old mug of builder’s tea!

Yields 26 biscuits

• 90g dried currants
• 90ml orange juice
• 155g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 135g golden caster sugar, plus demerara sugar for sprinkling on top
• 1 large egg and one large egg yolk
• 210g plain flour
• 140g polenta/corn meal, regular or coarse
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Zest of one lemon
• 50g pine nuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 160C (fan) and cover two baking sheets with baking paper or silicone mats.

Place the currants in a small saucepan with the orange juice and place over a very gentle heat for about five minutes - just long enough to warm the juice. Turn off the heat and leave the currants to sit in the juice for 15-20 minutes or until you need to add them to the biscuit mixture, allowing them to steep in the orange flavour and plumpen up from the juice.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or with a handheld electric whisk, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. This may take a while depending on how soft your butter is - mine took a good five minutes or so.

Once creamed, add the egg, beat to incorporate and then do the same with the egg yolk.

In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, polenta/corn meal, baking powder, and salt and mix them all together using a balloon whisk (this helps to sift out lumps and to add some air).

Add the dry ingredients into the beaten butter, sugar and egg mixture and beat until incorporated.

Drain the currants, discarding the little orange juice that they haven't absorbed, then add them to the bowl along with the lemon zest and pine nuts if using. Beat again to combine and bring the dough together.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and then shape and pat it with your hands into a rectangle. If it proves to be too wet and sticky for you to be able to shape it, sprinkle some extra flour over it and under it, then shape.

Use a rolling pin to roll the rectangle to a thickness of about half an inch/1.5cm. At this point, you can wrap the rolled out dough in clingfilm and freeze it until you need it. When ready to bake it, remove from the freezer and leave out to soften for about 15-20 minutes.

To shape the biscuits, you have several options: if you aren't fussed about them being the traditional Venetian boat shape, use a cookie cutter of your preference to cut out as many biscuits as the dough will yield. If you want diamonds, use a knife to cut the dough into long strips that are about two inches wide, then cut the strips at a diagonal to get diamonds. For boat-shaped biscuits, I found the best thing was to break off about a golf ball sized lump of dough and shape it with my hands into an oval, pinching the ends to make them pointy. The biscuits won't be uniform or smooth/flat on top if you do it this way, but during my trip to Italy I didn't see a single one that was a perfect, neat shape - they were all lumpy and misshapen, and to my mind tasted all the better for it!

Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheets and sprinkle liberally with demerara sugar (the crunchier the better, no?) Bake one sheet of biscuits at a time for 15 minutes or until beautifully golden.

Allow to cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

If you keep the biscuit in an airtight container at room temperature, they should keep for 3 to 4 days.

Triple chocolate and orange cookies

One of my favourite memories from when I was little - a food-related memory, obvners - is of the lady who lived next door to us making Bonfire Toffee every year for Guy Fawkes'/Fireworks Night and being kind enough to give some to mumma for me, my brother and twinny to happily rot our teeth on.

Being a ziggypiggy even at the tender young age of five, I suspect my poor siblings didn't get much of a look in with not just the toffee, but any food in the house. Still, I suppose that would explain why all the Asian auntie-jees, upon seeing twinny and I together would cast their critical eye over me before gleefully stating "Achaa [I see], so you're the chubby one".

Anyway, glossing over the kind, gentle auntie-jees with their innocuous observations and returning to toffee, sadly, as we well know, all good things must come to an end. We moved house, and for whatever reason, the next-door-neighbour refused to come with, meaning the ready supply of Bonfire toffee was no more. Hmph.

Now that I'm a fully-grown ziggypiggy, every year when Guy Fawkes' Night comes around, I hunt in vain for Bonfire Toffee and never seem to have any luck. Worse still, what saddens me is that instead of preparing for Fireworks Night, the supermarkets prefer, increasingly, to push Halloween. Since when did the Amreekanism of dressing up as ghouls and goblins and going trick or treating get so big here in the UK?

What's particularly galling is that a few years back, when my mum answered the door to some trick-or-treating teenagers, they rejected the sweets she kindly offered them and instead demanded money! Poor, naive K-Dub, robbed on her own doorstep by a bunch of ghosts! (I'm pretty sure I suggested to her at the time that we turn off all the lights and spend the evening in total silence so that any little treat-seeking opportunists would think no-one was home, but would she listen?!)

Despite my disapproval of the UK's new-found love for Halloween, I will acknowledge that not all American influences and imports are bad; it has also given us greatness. In no particular order, Chris Pine and cookies spring to mind.

Cookies. Which brings me neatly onto this recipe: one from my old girl-crush Nige. These are mahoosive mounds of ridiculously chocolate biscuit. I say biscuit because although technically they are chocolate chunk cookies, they're not chewy and are almost a little shortbread like in their crumbly texture. They require chocolate in three different formats, hence the name, and you can leave the orange zest out if you want, but that would just be silly of you. Enjoy.

Adapted from Nigella's Totally Chocolate chocolate chip cookies

Makes about 12 large cookies

• 125g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
• 150g plain flour
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 125g soft, unsalted butter
• 85g soft, light brown sugar
• 40g caster sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg (cold from the fridge)
• Zest of one large orange
• 350g plain chocolate (40-50% cocoa), chopped

Preheat the oven to 170C (150C for fan ovens)

Break the 125g dark chocolate into large pieces in a bowl and melt either in the microwave or a bain marie, then set aside to cool a little.

Into another large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

Using either a freestanding mixer (with the paddle attachment) or a handheld electric whisk, beat together the butter and two sugars until light and creamy.

Add the melted chocolate to the butter and sugar mix and beat again until incorporated, then add the vanilla extract and egg and mix to combine.

Tip in the sifted ingredients and mix through, before finally adding the orange zest and chocolate chunks and stirring through once more until everything is combines.

Use a tablespoon or an ice cream scoop to measure out 12 large balls of dough and place them about 5cm apart on a couple of baking sheets. If the dough balls prove reluctant to come away from the spoon or scoop, a palette knife will help to prise them out. Don't worry about having nice, perfectly rounded balls of dough, you want them to be lumpy and bumpy. And don't flatten the tops of them!

Bake for 18 minutes, then leave to cool and set a little.

Lemon and mascarpone oat biscuits

I have a little picture up in my bedroom with a statement on it that reads "I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world". Now obviously this is true, but sadly I am in possession of neither a cape, nor a nice tiara, which may explain why there's been a lot of turbulence and trauma in my life of late, both of which show no sign of abating any time soon.

I suppose there's a possibility that I'm being melodramatic and that things aren't as bad as they might seem, but when one finds oneself randomly, and unprovoked, bursting into uncontrollable sobs on a busy tube platform, usually that right there is a sign that all is not as it should be!

The real sign, however, came when I went out for dinner the other day. It was all going swimmingly until it came to dessert and, for some bizarre and unfathomable reason, I rejected the chocolate options - indeed, I rejected any sugar or gluten-based options - and instead went for the cheese board. I don't really know what I was thinking. Evidently I wasn't thinking. Don't get me wrong, I love cheese but as we all well know, its rightful place is in a toasted sandwich, not on a dessert plate.

My strange decision made me realise that it's probably time for me to go in search of the elusive cape and tiara in order to right the wrongs of the world, or at least to stop me from denying myself of a proper dessert ever again. Whilst I pootle off on my search, here are some mascarpone and lemon-filled, pistachio-topped oatie biscuits for you.

Adapted from Nigel Slater's Oat and lemon cookies

Ingredients

Yields 6 large sandwiched biscuits or 8 average sized biscuits

120g butter, softened to room temperature
120g light muscovado sugar
1 large egg yolk
120g porridge oats
90g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of Maldon or other sea salt
20g pistachios, chopped roughly
100g mascarpone
100g lemon curd

Preheat the oven at 180C (160C fan).

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy, then mix in the egg yolk.

Once combined, add in the oats, flour, baking powder and salt and mix through until the ingredients bind together cleanly.

Divide the mixture into 12-16 cookies depending on how large you want them to be. Roll the divided pieces into balls then flatten into roughly and place on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Keep them about 4-5mm in thickness, so they remain chewy after baking. Note that I followed Nigel's instructions and made 12 biscuits, each about the diameter of a Digestive biscuit, but they expand in the oven so end up much larger than a Digestive! Next time I would make them smaller.

Sprinkle the chopped pistachios over half of the biscuits, pressing the nuts lightly into the dough.

Bake all the biscuits for 11-12 minutes, until they are lightly golden, then remove the tray from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool for a minute or two before transferring to a cooling rack. As they cool they will crisp up.

To make the filling, place the mascarpone in a mixing bowl and stir in the lemon curd, mixing well to combine and to get a smooth, creamy mixture.

Turn the biscuits that aren't topped with pistachio upside down and place a good dollop of the mascarpone mix on each. You can spread the mascarpone a little with a palette knife but don't spread it to the edge of the biscuits as it will ooze out. Cover with the pistachio-topped biscuits.

Speculoos, banana and chocolate chunk cookies

Well before the Great British Bake Off, there was a daytime cookery programme on television called ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’. The premise of the show was to pair celebrity chefs up with contestants who would present them with a bag of mystery ingredients; each chef then had just 20 minutes to make something from scratch for/with the help of their contestant, using said ingredients.

Whilst watching the programme, I would always ponder what I'd take along in my bag if I were ever on the show. Invariably I’d settle upon ingredients that I knew would give the chefs no other option than to make something sweet and, ideally, chocolaty.  I mean come on, 20 minutes for a top chef to make something especially for you - surely it would be bonkerdom to want them to make anything other than a dessert!

Anyhoo, a few months ago a very lovely friend of mine came over for dinner and I was reminded of ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’ because, rather than conforming to the norm and bringing flowers or a box of chocolates (not that I would ever object to receiving either of those things should you be so inclined), my friend brought me ingredients. As I pulled each thing out of the bag, I contemplated what I could make with it, as though I myself were one of the famous chefs (humour me here) on the show once so beloved by me. The pièce de resistance of all the ingredients was a jar of Speculoos: a delicious Belgian biscuit-spread made from crushed, spiced biscuits, with a sort of gingerbread-like or caramelised taste to it.

After a couple of months of research and deliberation (this is not a matter to be taken lightly people!) I opted to use the spread to bake Speculoos, banana and chocolate chunk cookies. I liked these cookies.  I liked them a lot.  They’re warm and earthy and comforting with a crisp outside and a chewy interior – as cookie-like as a cookie should be.

Adapted from How SweetIt Is: Peanut Butter, Banana, Chocolate Chip Cookies

Note: When I first baked these, I found the banana overpowered the Speculoos a little so in the recipe below, I’ve toned down the banana and increased the biscuit spread:unsalted butter ratio so that you really get a hit of the spices.

Makes about 26 medium-sized cookies

• 85g unsalted butter, melted
• 8 tbsp Speculoos
• 165g light brown sugar
• 105g granulated sugar
• 1 egg yolk (from a large egg)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ripe banana (medium size), roughly mashed
• 300g plain flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 200g plain chocolate (40% cocoa), chopped into chunks

Beat the melted butter, Speculoos and two sugars together in a large bowl until combined (I used a handheld electric whisk but a wooden spoon will work just as well).

Next, beat in the egg yolk and vanilla extract before adding in the mashed banana and beating again.

Sift the flour and baking soda together then add in thirds to the wet ingredients, mixing until it is all incorporated and you have a cookie dough consistency.

Finally, add in chocolate chips.

At this point, ideally refrigerate the dough for a minimum of two hours, but preferably overnight, so that you get a chewier cookie at the end of the baking process.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 160C (fan) and line two flat baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Shape the dough into roughly the size of a golf ball and place on the baking sheets about 2 inches apart from each other.  If you’re using two baking sheets, all the cookies will not fit on at the same time, so you will need to shape and bake them in two batches.

Bake for 12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the middles are puffy.

Nutella and hazelnut-stuffed browned butter chocolate chunk cookies

So that’s it, Christmas is over and most of us are probably eating leftover turkey sandwiches (I’ll have mine with a wedge of brie and a dollop of cranberry sauce please) whilst contemplating the plans for New Year’s Eve.  At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, I must say, I’ve never been a huge fan of New Year’s.  For me, it comes second only to Valentine’s Day (don’t get me started!) as an over-hyped ‘holiday’ designed to make most people feel pretty pants about themselves.

I cannot be alone in thinking thus.  The pressure to go out on New Year’s Eve and have a wonderful time is surely enough to give anyone a nervie b and - for me anyway - 9.9 times out of 10 it’s an anti-climax.  So much so in fact that usually I am more than happy to stay indoors, comfy-cosy in my PJs, watching all the commotion on television and trying – usually unsuccessfully - to stay awake long enough for the countdown.  Perhaps it’s a sign of my age…

Having said all that, this year, I’m doing a volte-face.  I’ve been invited to a house party you see, which, not only do I plan to go to, but I actually plan to get dressed up for (yes my friends, rejoice, the pyjamas will be shed!) and whatever happens darn it, I will have, not just a good time, but like, oh-my-God, just like, the most super-amazing time, like everrrr!!!

Of course, after the big night out will come the inevitable New Year’s resolutions to detox/lose weight/start exercising/[fill in with your resolution of choice].  But before all that, should you want to make the most of the remaining few days to indulge (until we all give up on our resolutions that is), I can’t recommend these Nutella-stuffed chocolate chunk cookies highly enough.  I came across them on the fantastic blog Ambitious Kitchen.  Admittedly, they take a bit more time and effort to make than your average cookie, both because of the beurre noisette* and the Nutella filling, but I can guarantee you, Cookie Monster would definitely approve!





These cookies are chewy, soft and buttery with a secret stash of Nutella hiding away in the centre, ready to shout 'BOO!' out at you when you bite into it!  Ideally, they're best eaten on the day of baking, whilst the Nutella centre is still soft and gooey.  Yummo!  I tweaked my cookies ever so slightly by adding a whole hazelnut into the centre of the Nutella, à la Ferrero Rochers, and by omitting the sea salt (mainly because I forgot to sprinkle it on while the cookies were still hot.  Doh!)

*Beurre noisette is brown butter.  If you’re nervous about making it, there are online guides on how to do so.  This how-to, on Ambitious Kitchen’s website saw me through the process (after I’d burnt my first lot!): http://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/2012/12/how-to-brown-butter-a-love-story/

Adapted slightly from Ambitious Kitchen's Nutella-stuffed brown butter & sea salt chocolate chip cookies

Makes around 20 cookies

• 20-25 whole hazelnuts
• 335g plain flour
• 1¼ tsp bicarbonate soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 220g unsalted butter
• 210g dark brown sugar
• 45g granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp plain greek yogurt
• 1½ tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 250g chocolate chunks (I used 40% cocoa but you can use darker if you prefer.  I think milk chocolate would make the overall cookie too sweet – it’s very sweet as it is!)
• 1 jar of Nutella, chilled in the fridge (200g should be enough, but it might be safer to buy a 400g jar. After all, anything you don’t use up for the cookies, you can just polish off with a spoon!)

To start, toast the hazelnuts by placing them on a baking sheet and popping them in the oven at 180C (160C fan) for 7-10 minutes.  Check them periodically to make sure they aren’t burning.  Once toasted, leave to cool, then rub gently in a clean tea towel to remove as much of the papery skins as possible (the skins can be bitter which is why they're best removed).

Sift the flour, bicarb and salt together into a bowl and set aside.

To make the brown butter, or beurre noisette, melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat. The butter will begin to foam. Make sure you whisk consistently during this process.  After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan.  Continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma.  Immediately transfer the butter to a cold bowl (either chilled in the fridge or over some ice) to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

Once your butter has cooled, with an electric mixer and a K-beater attachment, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended (a good few minutes).  Then beat in the egg, yolk, yogurt and vanilla until combined.

Next, add the sifted dry ingredients in thirds, beating on a low speed until fully incorporated.

Finally, fold in the chocolate chips.

Chill your dough for a minimum of two hours in the fridge, or even overnight if you can wait that long (a chilled dough results in a softer, chewier end cookie, so you really need to dig deep for some willpower and make sure you go through with this step, rather than skipping it and rushing to make the cookies so that you can eat them sooner!)

Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 180C (160C for a fan oven) and line three or four baking sheets with greaseproof paper (if you don’t have this many baking sheets, don’t worry, you can bake the cookies in batches).

Measure out about 1½ tablespoons of dough at a time and roll into a ball. Flatten the dough ball very thinly into the palm of your hand or onto your work surface.  Place a generous teaspoon of chilled Nutella in the middle and gently push one hazelnut into the Nutella.

Now fold the dough around the Nutella, encasing the Nutella and hazelnut inside the dough.  Gently roll the dough back into a ball, making sure that the Nutella is not seeping out.

Place dough balls onto your baking sheets, about two inches apart to allow for spread as they bake.

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes until the edges of the cookies begin to turn golden brown. They may look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven.

Cool the cookies on the sheets for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.