Hazelnut Cookies with Mini Chocolate Chips: #TheLeftoversClub

Hazelnut Cookies with Mini Chocolate Chips: #TheLeftoversClub

I hate Nutella. There, I said it. I just do not understand the attraction and find it way too sweet. However, I agree that hazelnuts and chocolate make a beautiful partnership, complementing one another. When you do not allow the sugar to overtake the whole thing. In these cookies, the flavor of the hazelnut is clear and present, nicely accented by semi sweet chocolate (although a chopped up high cacao milk chocolate bar would be nice also). My kids have absolutely been obsessed with these. Sammy has proclaimed them her favorite cookie that I have ever made. Mind you my kids are prone to hyperbole, but they both have been obsessing over these big time.

Hopefully Shaina of Take A Bite Out Of Boca will feel the same! And hopefully they will not arrive too battered–the cookies hold together perfectly, but they are chewy not crunchy, and definitely soft enough to bruise or dent. Because yes it is The Leftovers Club time again!

I adapted these cookies from a recipe is Amber Rose’s lovely Love, Bake, Nourish: Healthier cakes and desserts full of fruit and flavor

. I just received this book and I have half of it bookmarked already. It is not chocolate heavy, and nor does it use much in the way of refined flours or sugar. But the cakes and cookies in it are exactly the kind of unpretentious homey baked goods I love. Nuts are used quite prominently in their ground state, i.e., nut flour or nut meal, which is my preferred way to use nuts, so I am also attracted to that in it. It has many interesting flavor combinations as well, using ingredients such as dried lavender and orange blossom water.

Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: cookies

• 4½ cups hazelnut meal/flour
• 1 t espresso powder
• 1 t ground vanilla beans
• 2 cups miniature chocolate chips (check label to make sure are dairy free if you are avoiding dairy)
• ½ t salt
• 1 cup honey or ⅔ cup golden syrup plus ⅓ agave (my preference because I don’t care for honey)
• 1 t vanilla
• 2 large egg whites
• flour for dusting (use a GF flour or rice flour to keep them gluten free)

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats and set aside.

Whisk together the hazelnut meal, espresso powder, ground vanilla beans and salt. Place in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix in the mini chocolate chips.

Using the flat beater, mix in the honey (or golden syrup and agave). The mixture will be wet and sandy.

Whisk the vanilla into the egg whites and then add that to the mixture. Once again mix on low to incorporate.

Dust a clean work space with flour. Dump the dough out onto it. Dusting your hands liberally with flour, knead the dough until it comes together, much like scone dough does. (You may need to dust with flour a second or even third time.)

Pinch off walnut sized pieces of dough and roll it into a ball. Then flatten it into a circle about 2 inches in diameter. Place on the cookie sheet, up to 12 to a sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes, until they are browning at the edges. Let cool on the cookie sheet.

3.2.2265

Affiliate links were used in this post, but only to link to items I would be discussing and linking to anyway.

#theleftoversclub,

chocolate chips,

cookbook review,

cookies,

dairy-free,

gluten free,

hazelnut,

miniature chocolate chip,

nut flour,

nuts