For all the anticipation breaking into my new gorgeous mixer over the weekend held, it admittedly got off to a rather disappointing start in the form of broken chocolate cakes. Two broken chocolate and honey cakes, to be exact.
It went something like this- I whip up chocolate cake batter in a breeze with my kickass mixer, pours it into a generously greased tube pan, eagerly pulls it out of the oven after almost a good hour, tips the pan over a wire rack only to have the cake plop onto the rack in pieces.
Undetered, I try again- this time generously greasing and flouring the pan and the same damned thing happens again. Brilliant. Oh, and you know what the kicker is? After the cake broke on me the second time, I tasted some of it and realized I didn’t even like it. Oh well.
To make myself feel better and also because it’s the weekenddd (I love saying that!), I decided to make some cookies I’ve had my eye on for a while.
The cookies were sooo good! Not quite your run-of-the-mill chocolate chip cookies, they had one additional ingredient in the form of hazelnut butter which made all the difference- not that regular chocolate chips cookies are a bad thing at all.
After spending the morning hitting the gym then cooling off in our new pool to the tunes of Kelly Clarkson and Snow Patrol, these cookies were a great way to wrap up a fantastic weekend morning.
Judging by the way this weekend went, all other weekends to come have a lot to live up to- although if I make these cookies every weekend, it shouldn’t be too hard at all.
Hazelnut-Butter Cookies with Chocolate Chips [adapted from Epicurious.com]
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup hazelnut butter †
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup dark chocolate chips ††
- Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, caster sugar and brown sugar together till light and fluffy. Add the hazelnut butter in and mix well. Beat the egg and vanilla in. Fold the flour in till just incorporated before stirring in the chocolate chips. Cover and refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 175C. Line 2 baking trays with aluminium foil. Drop tablespoonfuls of the dough on the prepared trays, about an inch apart each. Bake the cookies one tray at a time until the cookies are golden brown, about 12-14 minutes. Let cool on the trays for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 50 cookies
† I made my own hazelnut butter by toasting 1 cup of whole hazelnuts and grinding them with 4 tbsp of vegetable oil.
†† The original recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips. I halved the amount after reading reviews that the dough couldn’t incorporate all the chocolate chips. A cup of chocolate chip seems perfect.
snooky doodle
/ April 19, 2009oh these cookies look delicious . I love hazelnuts. Pity about the cakes
ovenhaven
/ April 20, 2009Sorry to hear about the two cakes! Well it’s a good thing you found yourself not liking them, I guess.
But hazelnut butter? I can only imagine how aromatically nutty these would be. Gorgeous.
thecoffeesnob
/ April 21, 2009Hey snooky doodle. Yeah these disappeared really quickly. Good thing I still have half a batch of cookie dough sitting in the fridge
Hey Zhul. Heh well yeah it would probably have been a smarter idea to taste it the first time it broke on me. GRR.