Browned Butter Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am a total cookie monster!  Especially when it comes to chocolate chip, they are my favorite.  I adapted this recipe from the ambitious kitchen and combined it with my go to, always wonderful, chocolate chip recipe.  I have run across this recipe many times on Pinterest, but the craving just hit me in such a hard way that I knew I just needed to go home and make these.  I did a quick mental check of what I have at home on my drive home and was pulling out ingredients out of the pantry before even putting my purse down.

These cookies are just sinful and beautiful. Just how chocolate chip cookies are meant to be. They're hazelnut and chocolate goodness, with a rich caramel taste because of the browned butter and brown sugar.  I mean these are over the top good!  Sea salt is ALWAYS a good idea, especially over chocolate.

When I bake chocolate chip cookies, I don't skimp on my chocolate, and you shouldn't either.  Use a good quality semi-sweet and use the bark that you must crush into chunks yourself instead of the chips.  The different size chunks and crumbs of the chocolate add to the decadence of the cookie. It just makes it so not "cookie cutter" (haha pun intended).

I hope you enjoy these as much as my hubby and I did.  They just make your day extra special and so much better.  I ate so many that I literally got a stomach ache.  Sometimes I act like my baby sister, or a child in general...but who cares.  It was worth it.

Heads up, the cookie dough needs to chill for 2 hours.  Sorry, but it's a must to get a rich, chewy cookie.

Browned Butter Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies:  makes about 20 or so cookies

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 1/3 cup + 1 tbs all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1-4 oz semi-sweet chocolate bar (I used Ghirardelli), chunked...I go at it with a heavy serving spoon
Nutella

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add butter, let it melt and foam up.  Begin whisking continuously until the butter takes on a dark yellow tinge and smells nutty.  Take it off of the heat and put into a bowl so that the cooking process ends.  Let it cool down (I put mine in the fridge).  It should take on a pretty brown color at the bottom of the bowl where the delicious brown flecks are.  It smells like caramel...oh my god, yum.  I would drink it if I could.

Moving on...

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and whisk.

Combine the sugars and add the cooled down butter in your mixing bowl.  Mix the butter with the sugars at a medium speed for about 3 minutes.  Reduce speed to low, add the egg and vanilla, and beat on medium speed until fully combined.

Reduce speed to low and add the flour mix slowly. Stop mixer as soon as the flour has combined in with the sugar/butter mixture.  Fold in the chocolate chunks.

Stick the cookie dough into the fridge for 2 hours minimum (you need patience for this part...sorry) and also just stick in your container of Nutella into the fridge as well.

Once you've endured the 2 hours, preheat oven to 350.  Get your cookie sheet ready with parchment paper or silpat.

So, this may be a little hard to explain, but I am going to try!  Take about a tablespoon of cookie dough and flatten out into a disk in the palm of your hand.  Add a dollop of nutella and fold the disk around the nutella back into a ball and slightly flatten.  There! You have a cookie ready to bake!  It's a little messy.

Bake for 8-10 min.  Check after 8 min and see if the edges have slightly browned.  If so, take them out!

Sprinkle with a bit of sea salt once they are fresh out of the oven.  Now take a big bite out of a hot, ooey gooey, chocolate-y, hazelnut-y, butter-y cookie.

You're welcome.