As soon as I saw a photo of Erin Clarkson's Malted Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies on Instagram, I knew I had to make them. When I read through the recipe, I was intrigued by the technique used to incorporate the Nutella. It's not just mixed into the batter. Instead, you pipe out the Nutella into little chips that you freeze. While the frozen Nutella does get smooshed when you mix it into the batter, if you're careful, you can get distinct streaks of Nutella in the finished cookies instead of a homogeneous dough.
So first I made the Nutella chips. I put Nutella in a pastry bag, cut off the tip of the bag, and piped out blobs onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. The blobs were different shapes and sizes, but I managed to get a few that were actually the prototypical "chip" shape. I put the baking sheet in the fridge for half an hour. Making the dough is easy. You mix melted (not browned) butter with brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, and vanilla; add the dry ingredients (flour, malted milk powder, instant espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt); and stir in the chocolate (I used Callebaut 2815 callets) and frozen Nutella chips.
I reserved some chocolate callets and Nutella chips to stick on top of the cookies. I used a #24 scoop to portion out the dough and got 15 cookies from a batch. The recipe says you should chill the cookies before baking, but I spaced out a bit and accidentally skipped this step. Instead, I added some chocolate and Nutella chips on top of the cookies and immediately put them in the oven. Right after they were done baking, I scooted the edges to get perfectly round shapes and also sprinkled the cookies with Maldon salt.
These cookies were freaking delicious. They had a perfectly crisp exterior and satisfyingly chewy center. The crisp quality of the exterior was most pronounced on the first day, but the cookies were still fantastic the few days that they lasted. While I would not have guessed that the cookies include malt powder or espresso powder just from tasting one, the cookies do have a well developed, rich, toasty flavor that I think is the result of those ingredients. And the Nutella nuggets are so dang good. This is one of my favorite chocolate chip cookies of all time -- it delivers both a wonderful complex flavor and an incredible texture. I liked the cookies so much that I made them again a few days later (again skipping the chilling step before baking), and they were just as delightful.
It so happens that I made these cookies yet again just last weekend, as a baking project with some friends' children, at their house. I picked up supplies at the grocery store beforehand, and for the chocolate, I bought a few bars of Ghiradelli 72% twilight delight. As you can see in the photo below, the chunks of chopped chocolate bars that we placed on top of the cookies before baking melted into dramatic puddles. The cookies were slightly smaller and thinner than those I had made previously, because the cookie scoop we had available was a #40. But the cookies still had a very crisp exterior paired with a superchewy interior. I'm glad this cookie doesn't lose its essential character when it's scaled down a bit. 
It is true that piping out the Nutella chips and freezing them requires a bit of extra effort, but if you like Nutella and chocolate chip cookies, just run to grab a pastry (or Ziploc) bag and start piping now! I'm difficult to impress when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, but these blew me away.
Recipe: "Malted Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies" by Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen.
Previous Posts:
- "A New Chapter Begins: Nutella Chip Cookies," November 6, 2014.
- "This Cookie Is a Contender: Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Nutella," September 13, 2010.
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