Peanut butter blossom cookies are a standard, but I never considered what might happen if you replaced the peanut butter with something equally gooey and wonderful. I figured that regular chocolate wouldn’t quite do the trick (and it would probably be a melty gross mess in this late-May weather we’re having in Philly). So I went with the next best thing – Nutella.
For me at least, this chocolate/hazelnut combination spread took off somewhere around 7th grade when every middle schooler started taking French class and got to have Nutella and bread on Fridays. Oddly enough, it has nothing to do with France. Nutella was first introduced in in Italy in the 1940s. During World War II, there was a shortage of cocoa due to rationing, so Pietro Ferrero, an Italian pastry chef, used hazelnuts to extend the usage of chocolate. Now, the world seems to embrace this half and half mixture.
This is what you need:
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Nutella
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar (for rolling the dough)
1 package of Hershey’s kisses
This is what you do:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In another medium bowl, place the chocolate hazelnut spread, butter, and both sugars.
Using a hand mixer, cream the ingredients together, about 3 minutes.
Add the egg and vanilla and blend until incorporated.
Stir in the dry ingredients, just until incorporated.
Shape the cookie dough into walnut-sized balls
Roll the balls in the spare sugar, pressing to adhere
Place the cookies on a heavy cookie sheet about 4 inches apart
Bake for 8 minutes
Remove the cookies from the oven
Quickly place a chocolate kiss in the middle of each cookie
Return the cookies to the oven and bake for another 3 minutes
Cool the cookies on a wire rack