The ultimate gourmet-style cookies, these Nutella stuffed cookies are made with browned butter, flecked with semisweet chocolate, lightly sprinkled with sea salt, and most importantly, bursting with a molten core of Nutella! Despite their gourmet-status and ingredients, they’re actually quite simple to make, and if you’ve never made browned butter before I’ll walk you through all of the steps in detail in the recipe!
I don’t like to think of myself as a bragger (braggart? I’ve thought about this for too long and the word is starting to lose all meaning to me).
I’m proud, sure, of many of my recipes and this little space that I’ve created, and I can get full-on impassioned when talking about egg yolks and butter and the importance of keeping a thermometer (or two) in your oven at all times.
But I don’t really like to boast about my recipes. Sure, here I talk about their best qualities, but in the real world it’s more of a “I thought this was good, and I hope you like it too”, and let the cookie/cake/etc. speak for itself.
But I have been full out bragging about these cookies. Everything short of stopping people in the halls of the hospital where I work and telling them about “these amazing Nutella stuffed cookies that I made”.
Maybe cutting drastically back on the amount of sugar that I’m consuming during Lent has sent my brain into a cookie-obsessed frenzy, but I’m full-on crazy about these Nutella-stuffed cookies, and I want everyone to try them.
They’re actually a Frankenstein of a cookie driven together by my newfound love of browned butter cookie dough (I used nearly the same exact dough in Friday’s recipe, shhh) and merged that with my love of stuffing desserts inside other desserts, and the half-empty jar of Nutella left over after making a video of these Nutella brownies. Rather than finish off the Nutella spoonful by shameful spoonful, I opted to instead stuff it inside my recent favorite cookie dough for these Nutella stuffed cookies.
Part of me wanted to wait a while before sharing this recipe since, as I mentioned, the base cookie dough was just used in my last recipe, but there was no waiting with these. I felt that it was my duty to the universe to release this recipe as soon as humanly possible, and so here we are 😉
Soft cookies flecked with real chocolate, infused with the golden browned butter in every delectable bite, and centers filled with sweet molten Nutella. There was no waiting with this recipe.
I’ve already talked here and here (and about a half dozen other places on the blog) about the joys of baking with browned butter.
If you haven’t browned butter yourself yet, that’s going to have to change because it is essential for the best possible cookie dough and flavor, and ultimate Nutella stuffed cookies. It’s amazing how such a simple technique can take a standard cookie dough and transform it into something amazing, but it can!
For those of you a little leery of toasting your butter, I include detailed notes and a photo in the recipe to make the process as smooth as possible. Just remember to not take your eyes off of it, because the second you turn your back it’s bound to burn.
Rather than use chocolate chips in this recipe, I opted for a single 4-oz bar of semisweet baking chocolate. I chopped it very finely so that there would be a bit in every bite without being overwhelming when paired with the chocolate flavor of the Nutella.
Enjoy!
And P.S.
If you live in my neighborhood you’re more than likely very aware that there’s a giant snowstorm headed our way tomorrow, and the likelihood of a snow day is strong. Do yourself a favor and skip the milk, toilet paper, and bread, and stock up on butter, Nutella and sea salt.
I can’t think of a better way to pass a snow day than with a batch of Nutella stuffed cookies (sure beats shoveling!).
Nutella Stuffed Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter 226g
- 1 cup Nutella 280g
- 1 cup brown sugar 200g
- 2/3 cup white sugar 135g
- 2 eggs room temperature preferred
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 3/4 cups + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour 362g
- 2 teaspoon cornstarch cornflour in UK
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 oz semisweet chocolate bar very finely chopped 113g
- sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
To Brown the Butter (It's easy, I promise!)
- Prepare your Nutella filling first by lining a cookie sheet with wax paper and dropping Nutella by 2 teaspoon-sized dollops onto cookie sheet. Place in freezer to harden while you prepare your cookie dough.
- Cut your butter into Tablespoon-sized pieces and place in a medium-sized saucepan. Melt over medium-low heat.
- Once butter has melted, increase heat to just above medium heat.
- Swirl and scrape the sides of the pan frequently with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula - the butter will bubble and pop. Once the bubbling/popping slows, the butter will begin to turn brown, it will look like this once it's finished:
- Watch the butter very carefully at this point, and once it begins to brown and you smell the nutty aroma of browned butter, remove from heat quickly and pour into a large, heatproof bowl.
- Allow butter to cool for 25-30 minutes before proceeding with the recipe.
For the Cookie Dough
- Preheat oven to 375F (190C) and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Add sugars into cooled browned butter, stir well.
- Stir in eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition.
- Add vanilla extract and stir.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, stirring until ingredients are completely combined.
- Add your finely chopped chocolate bar and stir well.
- Chill dough in refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.
- Remove frozen Nutella from freezer and cookie dough from refrigerator (if at any point the Nutella becomes too sticky and hard to work with, return to freezer for at least 5-10 minutes)
- Scoop dough by heaping 1 1/2 Tbsp-sized spoonful and press frozen Nutella dollop into the center. Form around Nutella until it is completely concealed (add more dough as needed).
- Roll into an even ball and place on a wax-paper lined sheet. Repeat until all Nutella dollops are concealed in cookie dough, and freeze cookie dough balls for 15 minutes.
- Place cookie dough at least 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined sheet, and bake on 375F (190C) for 12-13 minutes, or until edges are just beginning to turn golden brown.
- Sprinkle immediately with sea salt. Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet before removing (they'll be quite fragile when warm, but will become more sturdy as they cool).
Nutrition
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Denise says
These are amazing!!! I’m making them again but I want to make them the day before so I’m not in a rush the day of. Can I make these cookies with Nutella inside already and freeze them for the next day or should I refrigerate them? Will the center melt all the way?
Sam says
Hi Denise! You should be able to just keep the balls of dough in the refrigerator in an air tight container. There’s no need to freeze them. 🙂
Anjan Sachar says
Is it possible to make an eggless version of this recipe?
Sam says
Hi Anjan! Unfortunately I am not sure what a good substitute would be for the eggs in this recipe. 🙁
Anjan says
I’ve tried using flax eggs as a substitute but the batter seems to be much harder and just not as nice as this is 🙁
Melanie Tanner says
We followed instructions exactly and our turned out really well. I didn’t think they would, but they did. It was our first time browning our butter. It took time and patience and we weren’t sure if it had actually browned when we finally took it off (maybe watch a tutorial that talks about wait times?), as it didn’t smell very nutty but I was worried about it burning. But after sitting for about 10 minutes it started smelling really nutty and delicious. We added the exact amount of flour suggested and in our hot and humid climate the dough was good. Wet enough to need the refrigerator (as told to do in the instructions) but not too wet and definitely not dry. The one thing we did wrong was NOT have our nutella in the fridge before putting it into drops on the parchment to freeze. We keep it in the cupboard and used it at warm room temperature which made it really difficult to put in dollops (of 2 tsp. each) onto the parchment. Refrigerate the nutella first. Using 2 tsp. dollops makes quite large cookies. We had to really smoosh the dough around the frozen nutella, to keep it from getting too large. Just use 1 tsp. dollop of frozen nutella to make a smaller cookie. We cooked for 13 minutes and that was perfect. crispy edges and soft middle. We’ll definitely make this recipe again.
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed the cookies so much, Melanie! Sounds like they turned out great. Browning butter can be scary but once you get it down it’s easy and really helps add a lot of flavor. I do have a post with a video on how to brown butter if you need a little extra information on doing it. I hope you continue to enjoy them. 🙂