Pencil and Fork

Do you love nutella? More to the point, who doesn’t love nutella? It’s such a perfect chocolatey and hazelnutty combination, let’s face it: I can eat it out of the jar. Luckily, the interweb has discovered it too, and Nutella recipes abound. I wanted to make some cookies for my friend, and when I saw the recipe for these Nutella pocket cookies at La Fuji Mama and they looked irresistible.

The dough turned out to be a bit of a problem. I don’t know if it was the addition of the cream cheese, or it I just made a big mistake in trying to convert the quantities into ones I understood (ie. not cups!), but the dough ended up a big, sticky mess that was impossible to roll out, even after spending ages in the fridge.

Sticky cookie dough

It was more like buttercream and I had to add a lot more flour to make it workable. I have a feeling I messed up the flour quantity, so I’ll have to try again (what a shame!)

Here’s what I used (quantities pending, best to check original recipe):

• Unsalted butter
• Cream cheese
• White sugar
• Plain flour
• Vanilla extract
• Nutmeg
• Nutella

I used nutmeg instead of cinnamon just because I like it more. I creamed together the butter, sugar and cream cheese until it was light & fluffy and added the vanilla extract and nutmeg.

Butter, sugar and cream cheese

At this point, it was pretty much like the buttercream icing I add to my carrot cake. I mixed in the flour, divided into four portions (as instructed) and refrigerated. After much refrigerating, I added a lot more flour to one of the portions and was able to roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. With a cookie cutter, I cut the dough into circles, and they were ready to meet the star of the show.

To each circle, slightly off-centre, I added a small dollop of Nutella (probably less than a teaspoon full each time).

Breaking the golden seal...

...mmmmmm...

I folded the cookies in half, with the Nutella in the middle, and sealed the edges.

Ready to cook

I cooked them at 170° C for about 12 minutes until they were showing some colour.

The cookies turned out well. I couldn’t really taste the cream cheese, but I suppose it may affect the texture. I might try them with a more conventional cookie dough. I couldn’t taste the nutmeg either (I only added half the suggested amount) so for my taste, I’d add a bit more next time. I love the idea of “pocket” cookies though, with a filling, and I’m quite happy to perform more Nutella experiments.

Yum