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Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Every now and then a recipe comes along that is just so darn delicious that you wonder where it’s been your whole life! This is such a recipe!!

The combination of brown butter, and a gooey cookie dough consistency make recipe one to be reckoned with…just when you thought a cookie couldn’t get any more delicious…along comes my good friend Nutella, to make it even more amazing!!

Disclaimer: You may want to eat far too many of these in one sitting – I strongly suggest you share these with your friends, or trouble will ensue.

I used this recipe on a Cup of Jo, by Monique at Ambitious Kitchen.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
2 cups dark brown sugar (light brown sugar works too)
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
16 tbsp Nutella (1 cup)
Sea salt for sprinkling

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a 9 x 13 inch pan with parchment paper. (A 7 x 11 inch pan will also work well.)

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. The butter will begin to crackle and foam. Make sure you whisk consistently during this process. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan; continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a bowl to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes. It is VERY important to let the butter cool. Please do not skip this step.

With an electric mixer, mix the brown butter and sugar until thoroughly blended. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well combined, smooth and creamy (about 1 minute). Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low-speed just until combined. Gently fold in all of the chocolate chips.

Divide the cookie dough batter in half. Spread half of the dough onto prepared pan, patting towards the edges. Try to make sure that the batter is evenly distributed; it’s going to seem like a thin layer but they will bake up and be glorious.

Drop Nutella by tablespoonfuls on top of first layer of cookie dough. You’ll want to do this all around the pan, leaving a small amount of space on the edges. Next, spread Nutella with a spatula so that it’s in an even layer on top of the cookie dough. Top Nutella with remaining batter, making sure Nutella is completely covered. Tip: I drop a handful of cookie dough in different areas on top of the Nutella, then use my hands to pat the cookie dough into an even layer.

Bake for 23 to 27 minutes, or until edges begin to turn a slight golden brown. I like to underbake mine a little so they stay gooey and soft in the middle. Sprinkle with sea salt. Allow to cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes before cutting into bars.

If you love these, I also recommend trying these brown butter chocolate chip cookies, stuffed with Nutella!!

Nutella Stuffed Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

Say what!? Yes, that’s right…these are chocolate chip cookies, made with brown butter, STUFFED with Nutella (and sprinkled with sea salt!). !@#$, what a cookie!!

I’m sure they’re worth the equivalent of a day’s worth of food in calories, but they are so darn delicious they’re worth it.

Being the new year, I’ve been attempting to stick to healthy eating…yoghurt and berries for breakfast, salad and tuna for lunch….but tonight it was cookies (hell, and wine!) for dinner…what a meal!!!

This recipe was taken from the blog Ambitious Kitchen, and what a fantastic recipe it was!! I also used a tutorial on how to brown butter from the same blog and found it really easy (I’ve tried other ways in the past and this method worked really well!!). My last attempt was in my brown butter cake recipe! You can make brown butter in advance and store it in the fridge also. Brown butter is seriously the bomb….try it on toast, try it drizzled on steak….even better, try it in cookies!! Enough about the joys of brown butter, here’s the darn recipe!!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon plain greek yogurt
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1 jar of Nutella, chilled in refrigerator
Coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Method:

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The butter will begin to foam. Make sure you whisk consistently during this process. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan; continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a bowl to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
With an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, vanilla, and yogurt until combined. Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low-speed just until combined. Gently fold in all of the chocolate chips.
Chill your dough for 2 hours in the refrigerator, or place in freezer for 30 minutes if you are super eager, although I cannot promise the same results if you do this.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
Once dough is chilled measure about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten the dough ball very thinly into the palm of your hand. Place 1 teaspoon of chilled nutella in the middle and fold dough around it; gently roll into a ball — it doesn’t have to be perfectly rolled! Make sure that the nutella is not seeping out of the dough. Add more dough if necessary. Place dough balls on cookie sheet, 2 inches apart and flatten with your hand VERY gently. (Really only the tops need to be flattened a bit!)
Bake the cookies 9-11 minutes or until the edges of the cookies begin to turn golden brown. They will look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven. Cool the cookies on the sheets at least 2 minutes. Sprinkle with a little sea salt. Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets after a few minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

And that’s it….pure deliciousness!! Can you think of a way to increase the calorific content of already delicious foods by stuffing them with even more delicious foods! The possibilities are endless!

Calories aside, these are the best cookies I have ever eaten!!

Brown Butter Cake with Vanilla Cream and Strawberries

So butter is pretty delicious right? On toast, in cakes…so many buttery possibilities. Today, simple butter just became a million times better when I…..learned how to make brown butter!!

“What is this mysterious brown butter you speak of?” I hear you ask. Well, it simply involves heating the butter until the water boils away and the milk solids begin to cook, turning a toasty brown. The result is a sweet and nutty tasting butter…I followed this tutorial to learn how to do it.

I used this recipe from Raspberri Cupcakes – the original version uses cherries on top, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any cherries because they’re out of season at the moment, so I went with the humble strawberry instead.

The recipe is quite easy, but you need to brown the butter in advance, so that you can chill it, prior to use. You then need to bring it back to room temp when you’re ready to make the cake – you can make it day before and keep it in the fridge if you like.

Ingredients

150g (1 1/3 sticks) butter (I used slightly salted but unsalted is also fine)
180g plain/all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
120ml (about 1/2 cup) milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste/pure vanilla extract
175g (approx 3/4 cup) granulated sugar (I used caster/superfine)
2 large eggs

Method

Prepare the brown butter ahead of time as you will need to chill it:

Place butter in a small saucepan on low heat and stir until it melts completely.
Continue cooking, stirring frequently until the milk solids turn brown and the butter smells nutty, about 4 minutes longer (or however long it takes for the solids to brown). Take care not to burn.
Scrape the melted butter and browned solids into small bowl and chill until solidified (about half an hour in the freezer, an hour or so in the fridge). When ready to make cake, remove from the fridge long enough that the butter is soft enough to be beaten with an electric mixer.

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease an 18cm (7 inch) round cake tin (you can also use 20cm/8inch). Line the base of tin with baking paper.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Mix milk and vanilla together in a measuring jug.
Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat sugar and brown butter in a large bowl until blended. Increase speed to high and beat well until very pale and creamy, at least 5 minutes.
Reduce speed to medium low, add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Alternately add flour mix and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture (I did it by adding 1/4 of of the dry mixture followed by 1/3 of the wet mixture at a time). Beat until smooth, occasionally scraping bowl with a spatula.
Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the outside is golden, about 35-40 minutes. Take cake not to overbake or cake will be dry.
Cool in tin for 15 minutes, then carefully turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely. Best served freshly baked and cooled but can be chilled in an airtight container for a couple of days.

For the cream:

300ml (about 1 1/4 cups) thickened cream, cold

1 vanilla bean pod, split and seeds scraped (or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste/pure vanilla bean extract)

1/4 cup icing/confectioner’s sugar, sifted

To decorate: Fresh cherries or other fruit

(Only whip cream when ready to serve and cake is at room temperature.) Place cream in a large mixing bowl with vanilla bean seeds and icing sugar.
Beat with an electric mixer on high speed until it reaches soft peaks. Take care not to overmix.
Use a spatula to spread over the top of your cake.
Decorate with fresh cherries/strawberries or whatever fruit you like

Now all that’s left is to make the tea!! Have you discovered the wonder of brown butter?