Nutella Surprise Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last summer my sister spent six weeks in Paris and fell in love with this stuff called Nutella.  Maybe I've been living under a rock for the past 26 years, but I had never really heard that much about it until her love affair began.  Still, it took about 16 months and a special occasion for me to ever buy a jar of this chocolate hazelnut spread.  

I had stumbled upon a recipe for nutella stuffed cookies on Pinterest (surprise, surprise) a while back and figured Sarah Beth's birthday would be the perfect time to give these babies a go.  Sure, they took a bit longer to make than your average cookie, but they were so good that the extra effort was MORE than worth it.  

These cookies have brown butter, brown sugar and three (yes, three) different kinds of chocolate chips mixed into the dough.  A nice plump dollop of nutella fills the middle while a light sprinkle of sea salt on top gives these cookies an unexpected pop of flavor.

While these cookies are certainly nothing less than delicious once they cool, they taste the best just out of the oven when the dough is still incredibly soft and warm and the nutella just spills out when you bite in.....can you tell I ate several of these and know just how they taste best???  If you're not near the oven when they come out just pop them in the microwave for 10-15 seconds.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a huge toffee fan, but when I caught a glimpse of these Chewy Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars over on Pinterest I couldn't resist giving them a go.  Reason being that I linked over to the recipe and realized just what all kinds of goodness went into these little babies....

Layer 1: Graham cracker crumbs, butter, toffee bits
Layer 2: Chocolate melted with sweetened condensed milk
Layer 3: Chocolate chip cookie dough and a few graham cracker crumbs
Layer 4: Toffee Bits sprinkled all a-top

Hhhhmm...considering that I would have eaten just the bottom layer alone I figured that these couldn't turn out too bad.  And I will have to say that they certainly didn't disappoint in the least.  I was worried that each of the layers would be too thin (my graham cracker mixture barely covered the bottom, but because all of the ingredients are pretty rich and flavorful the ratios turned out to be spot on.

I enjoyed the idea of these bars so much that I think I might experiment in the future with sugar cookie dough or mint chocolate chip bits....or maybe peanut butter...or white chocolate.  Well, you get the idea.

Enjoy!

Fluffiest, Chewiest Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER

So I know that Friday is supposed to be all about my Friday Links posts, but I had a few extra entries this week that I wanted to share.  Hopefully you don't mind :)

Do you think my title is convincing enough?  I tried.  But seriously, these are some of the best cookies you will ever eat.  I know lots of people claim to have great chocolate chip cookies, but these really do take the cake (or the cookie).   They are chewy, moist, and fluffy.  I use the word fluffy a lot when describing foods I love.  I think that might be because if a food is fluffy it means there is more of it.  And that, my friends, is always a good thing.

I originally saw these on Pinterest and hopped on over to Kelsey's Apple a Day blog to see what these rounds of sugar were all about.  They had received rave reviews, so I decided to take a go at them.

Oh dear were they fabulous!  It took a while to figure out exactly how to bake these things in order for them to come out just right, but once I got that part down the rest was smooth sailing.

One key difference in these cookies is the addition of cornstarch.  I did some research, and apparently it's the cornstarch that gives the cookies their fluffy, chewy texture.  And that's all good in my book!

A nice big glass of milk makes

any baked good taste better

Dunk...

Delish

Fluffiest, Chewiest Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever.  Ever.  courtesy of Kelsey's Apple a Day
3/4 C butter, softened
3/4 C brown sugar
1/4 C white sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
2 C all purpose flour
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes usually).   Add egg and vanilla and blend.

Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.  Gently fold in chocolate chips.

Use a standard size cookie scoop to distribute dough onto prepared pan.  Bake 8-10 minutes, or just until the edges of the cookie begin to turn a light golden brown.

*DO NOT, I repeat, do not overbake!  You will think that they are not done yet, but they will set up very nicely once you let them rest after their baking session.  If you bake them for longer than 10 minutes for any reason they will not be chewy or soft.

Did I mention that you shouldn't bake them for longer than 10 minutes (or probably 8)?  Okay, good.

Scoops of love

*This is where I deviate from the original recipe.  Kelsey's says to use a standard sized cookie scoop to place small mounds of dough on a baking pan, but that didn't work out too well for me.  The cornstarch (while it keeps the cookies fluffy), also kept mine from spreading AT ALL.  So I was left with big, round heaped over cookies.

So I tried again thinking I had made the scoops too big.  Nope, same problem.  Frustrated, I patted these down with a spoon with 2 minutes to bake, but still to hardly any avail.

My last batch turned out just how I wanted.  Instead of scooping the dough, I formed "patties" just like you would with a hamburger.  I pulled together a ball of dough, flattened it to the exact thickness that I wanted in the cookie, and then smoothed around the edges.

I was also able to place my cookies fairly close together since they didn't spread.

My 3 batches from left to right...large and domed, squished down at the end,

and then just right.

Some reviewer's on Kelsey's site said that the scooping method worked great for them, and others even said that theirs fell flat.  But that wasn't the case with me, and the patty method was my answer to prayers.  I would suggest putting in a very small batch of maybe 2 cookies to see how yours turn out before selecting your method of prepping these wonderful guys.

mmmmm

Enjoy!