Two-Bite Nutella Chocolate Cookies
Makes about 48 cookies
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup Nutella
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk or water
Yellow food coloring
Red food coloring
DIrections:
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or Silpat.
Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Make sure there are no lumps. (Sift through a strainer if necessary to break up the cocoa.)
In a standing mixer or with a handheld mixer, beat together the softened butter and Nutella until creamy. Beat in the granulated sugar and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, water, and vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beater as needed during these additions.
With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture. Mix just until the dough starts to come together and the flour is nearly incorporated. Fold the batter a few times with a spatula to work in the last of the flour.
Pinch off bits of dough and roll between your hands to make balls with a roughly 1-inch diameter. Arrange them on the baking sheet a few inches apart. Bake for 8 minutes for softer fudgy cookies or 10 minutes for crispy wafer cookies. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a cooling rack. Repeat with baking the remaining dough.
Let the cookies cool completely before drizzling with icing. When ready to ice, whisk together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk in a small bowl. Transfer half of the icing to a ziplock bag and seal it closed. To the remaining icing, whisk in the yellow and red food coloring until it is uniformly orange. Add more food coloring if you’d like more intensity. Transfer the orange icing into a second ziplock bag.
Arrange the cookies as closely together as possible on the cooling rack. Snip a tiny corner from the bag of white icing and drizzle in long diagonal lines across all the cookies. When finished, snip a corner from the bag of orange icing and repeat drizzling. Let the cookies sit for about 20 minutes for the icing to dry before serving or storing.
Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to a week.
Recipe courtesy of The Kitchn.com