nutella cookies

These are out of this world amazing! I'm not a big chocolate/cookie/dessert girl (go ahead, revoke my right to call myself female. I'll understand.) but last weekend I had a giant sweets craving that needed to be filled. Enter, nutella cookies. They're really thin, but not crispy. Three days after I made them, they're still deliciously soft and chewy, with a swoon-worthy, close-your-eyes-and-imagine-you're-in-heaven combination of chocolate and hazlenut. Rather than feeding my fix, they practically turned me into a chocoholic ;-D

Here's what you need:

1/2 c. white sugar

1/2 c. packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1-1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 c. nutella

1/2 c. butter/margarine

Preheat the oven to 350'. Melt butter in the microwave, then mix with both sugars using an electric mixer on medium. Then turn the power to low and add the egg and vanilla. Once that's all mixed, add the nutella and mix until blended.

In a separate bowl, combine flour + baking soda + salt. Add dry to wet, and mix on low speed until it's blended. I don't know if my mixer is just on its last leg, or if this mixture is really that thick, but I had a hard time combining it. Considering my mixer was like $10 at Kmart about 10 years ago, I'm thinking it's the mixer...

Once it's all smooth, scoop teaspoonfuls of the mixture and roll them into little balls. Space about 1.5 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. The original recipe called for freezing the cookie sheets for about 10 minutes before baking, but I skipped this step since my cookie sheets don't fit in my freezer. I'm glad I skipped it, though, because the thin flat cookies were exactly what I was going for. If you want more puffy cookies, go with the freezer method.

Bake 6-7 minutes (or 7-8 if you put the sheets in the freezer) -- then let them cool for 5 minutes before removing from the sheets. That last step was really important. The cookies came out slightly undercooked, but the last five minutes on the hot cookie sheet finished the job :)

ps. I have NO clue where I got this recipe from! I know it's from the internet somewhere, but I can't find the original recipe. If you know the original source please let me know so I can add a link! :)

nutella cupcakes

Last night I was perusing tumblr when I came across this amazing blog, Bake It in a Cake. I was drawn in with a Pumpkin pie in a cupcake recipe, but what ultimately hooked me was their recipe for Nutella and Vanilla cupcakes with Nutella buttercream frosting. (I know, "yum" right?!)

I panicked, though, because they only had a photo of a cupcake and no recipe! eek! Luckily, they posted it tonight and I was able to whip up a batch of delicious cupcakes for dinner. Yup, cupcakes for dinner.

I made a few alterations to the recipe -- instead of putting a chocolate wafer in the cupcake (since I don't have any) I just used the nutella. I also halved the icing recipe since nobody in my family is a huge fan, and even half was still a little too much for us. I actually over-iced the cupcake in this picture just for the blog post.. normally we just spread a little bit on top like butter ;-)

Our oven is broken, so it overheats and doesn't spread the heat evenly. Baking anything is really hit or miss, but these came out fine. The nutella sunk to the bottom of the cupcake instead of floating in the middle, but I actually think I prefer them that way! It was like a little cupcake sandwich with nutella on the top & bottom and cake in the middle!

And to top off the deliciousness, I opted for half of a Ferrero Rocher candy instead of a sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts. They are, without a doubt, some of the most scrumptious cupcakes I've ever tasted! My mom predicts that once my dad gets home from work & we have three people working on them, there won't be any cupcakes left by morning ;-)

ps. I'm planning on making the pumpkin pie cupcakes but with gingerbread cupcake instead of cream cheese! I'll let you know how they come out!

pps. Sorry for the crummy picture quality, I usually only take pictures in natural lighting, but I made these at night and wanted to snap a photo before they're all gone by morning!! :)