I promised you new Nutella recipes almost two months ago, and I am finally delivering in the form of the cutest, tiniest, most delicious Nutella Sandwich Cookies you ever did see.
Made with a buttery hazelnut sugar cookie dough and filled with a spoonful of Nutella, these are completely irresistible. Their texture isn’t crunchy or hard, so Nutella won’t squidge out the sides when you take a bite, but they are still sturdy enough to stack—it’s a little difficult to explain, but it’s so good.
I suppose the best endorsement I can give these Nutella Sandwich Cookies is that I have not shared even one with any of my friends or acquaintances, which is remarkable when you consider that the batch size falls around 8 dozen!
I’ll be the first to admit it: 8 dozen is a lot of cookies. But hear me out. Making sandwich cookies is a whole production, so you might as well make a ton at once to get your energy’s worth, right?! Also, they’re teeny tiny—1 1/2 inches in diameter, smaller than an Oreo. I can easily put away three or four at a time. If you’re still concerned, know that Nutella Sandwich Cookies keep for a while—longer than a week—so you don’t have to worry about them spoiling.
Honestly though, I don’t think you’ll have a whole lot of trouble putting these away. I mean, I’m over here by my lonesome and I’m managing just fine.
Nutella Sandwich Cookies
makes about 8 dozen small cookies
Cookie Dough:
2/3 cup whole raw hazelnuts
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For Assembly:
~1 cup Nutella
Preheat oven to 350F. Scatter hazelnuts on a dry rimmed sheet pan. Let toast for 5-7 minutes. Remove pan to a rack and turn off oven. Let hazelnuts cool to room temperature; no need to peel.
When hazelnuts are room temperature, add them to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until a fine meal forms—do not over process or you’ll have hazelnut butter.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, hazelnut meal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a separate large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients in 3 installments, combining completely after each. Divide dough into quarters, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate for 3 hours or up to 3 days.
Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Set aside.
Lightly flour a surface and a rolling pin. Take one quarter of chilled dough at a time, roll it to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut cookies with a 1 1/2-inch round cookie cutter. Place cut cookies an 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake cookies 6-7 minutes, until no longer raw-looking. Let cookies cool on the pans for five minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely. Repeat rolling, cutting, and baking with any remaining dough.
If not sandwiching immediately, store cookies in an airtight container for up to a couple of days.
To assemble sandwich cookies, place half the baked cookies on a surface bottom-side-up. Spoon or pipe about 1/2 teaspoon of Nutella on each cookie before gently topping with another cookie, bottom-side-down. Repeat until all cookies have been filled.
Cookies may be eaten immediately, but I like to let them sit in a single layer for a bit so that the cookies soften slightly against the Nutella; this way the cookie stays intact when you bite in.
Cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for at least a week.
Until a few weeks 
And while muffin/cupcake liners are the obvious solution to that problem, there was another to contend with: I was not terribly confident in my base muffin recipe. But then I went and tested the crap out of my 
You read that right: Brown Butter. Nutella Swirl. Muffins. Basically every good thing in the world in a handheld treat that is somehow suitable for consumption at breakfast.
The recipe for these muffins has a few adjustments from the Lemon Poppy Seed version, but not many. Besides the obvious flavor difference, there’s a little more flour and I swapped some of the milk for sour cream, making the batter a little thicker so the Nutella swirls don’t sink.
And speaking of Nutella swirls, they are applied in two phases. Basically, you add half the batter to the muffin cups, then swirl in some Nutella, then top with the remaining batter and swirl in remaining Nutella.
Y’all, these are so good. The interiors are feather soft and the Nutella swirls make every bite extra decadent, as all things with Nutella should be. Also, there’s a little variance in each bite—you could have a little Nutella or you could have a lot! The brown butter is subtle, as it is in my 
If I could change one thing about myself, I think I’d like to be a morning person. I really like mornings (especially the lazy variety), but I have such difficulty getting myself out of bed that I rarely enjoy them. It’s a whole horrible, eight-alarm ordeal on weekdays and I almost always sleep past 11 on the weekends, so I’m either a bleary-eyed mess or out like a light for the start of most days. But, on extremely rare occasions, I wake up early of my own volition—usually with the aid of jackhammers outside my window or the sun shining in my eyes—and I get to enjoy the morning, starting with making myself a nice breakfast.
Sometimes mixing flour, sugar, and butter is an act of self-care.
For something so rustic and beautiful, Nutella Morning Buns are surprisingly simple to make and come together in a pretty reasonable amount of time. It takes me about two hours to make a batch from the time I decide that a soft, warm bun full of chocolate-hazelnut spread might be nice to the time I dust them with confectioner’s sugar and dig in.
The dough is very straightforward. It’s got all the usual suspects: flour, a little sugar, butter, milk, and an egg. It requires yeast, of course, but I use the instant stuff here, which simplifies the already simple process, making these buns incredibly approachable.
If there’s anything that’s intimidating about making Nutella Morning Buns, it’s probably shaping. Never fear though—it’s really simple and satisfying. Once your dough has risen for 40 minutes, punch it down and roll it into a large rectangle. Spread it with a thin layer of Nutella and then fold it like a letter, so that you have alternating layers of dough and filling. Use a sharp chef’s knife to trim off the ends and slice the rest into a dozen 8×1” strips.
Working with one strip at a time, twist it up. Then cross the two ends over each other and tuck them into the hole that forms in the center. BOOM! Dough shaped!
Repeat with the rest of your strips and then let them rise a little longer. If some ends come untucked, just nudge ‘em back with your fingers before baking. Or don’t. These are the sort of buns that can take all sorts of manipulation and still look gorgeous when all is said and done. And even if they don’t, a swipe of melted butter and a dusting of confectioner’s sugar can cure all manner of ugly pastry.
But is there such a thing as ugly pastry when Nutella is involved? I don’t think so. Or if there is, nobody who tried one of these buns during testing found the time to tell me. Oh, and all the test batches were gone (GONE!) within 45 minutes of coming out of the oven, so I’ll just let that speak for itself.
I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to have anything but a beautiful morning when these are around.
e2 bakes brooklyn 