NUTELLA THUMBPRINTS

We got tired of chocolate chip cookies, so it was time to expand our horizons! But when you bake to please a discerning 8 year old this is easier said than done. She loves nutella and I thought why not nutella thumbprints? They turned out positively delicious, the only problem is the nutella centers would melt in the lunchbox unless of course we topped it with roasted hazelnut bits. The recipe makes 80 cookies, which appears a bit too much, but they are quite small, pop in your mouth size. You can halve the recipe, but then you will be sorry you didn’t make the full batch. The cookies grow just a bit during baking, so you can place them fairly close together on the cookie sheet.

NUTELLA THUMBPRINTS

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup + 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Nutella

• Preheat the oven to 350F and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.

• To make your life easier put a bit of butter in the corners of the cookie sheets, it will act as glue and the parchment paper will not slip slide around. These cookies are not substantial enough to stay put otherwise.

• Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.

• Beat the butter and sugar for 4 minutes.

• Add the vanilla extract.

• Add the flour and stir it into the butter mixture with a wooden spoon.

• With your hands gather the dough together until soft dough forms.

• Shape teaspoonfuls of dough into little balls by rolling them between the palms.

• Press a deep indentation into the center of each cookie with something. I used the tip of a large wooden spoon.

• Bake in preheated 350F oven for 12 minutes.

• Remove cookie sheet and quickly reinforce the indentation in the middle of each cookie.

• Return to the oven and bake 6-8 minutes longer.

• Remove from oven and spoon 1/4 tsp of Nutella into the center of each cookie.

  Another variation would be to melt 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to fill the centers with.