Hazelnut and White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside with the added textures of caramelised white chocolate and crunchy hazelnuts. White chocolate is Charlotte's favourite for cookies and she adores hazelnuts - hence these babies!
Ingredients
- 125g unsalted butter, at room temperature (NB if you would like to use brown butter, see Recipe Notes below)
- 100g soft brown sugar
- 75g caster sugar
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract/paste
- 200g plain/all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 100g white chocolate chunks
- 100g hazelnuts - either whole or chopped, your choice. I leave mine whole
Topping:
- 50g white chocolate chunks
- 50g hazelnuts - either whole or halved
Instructions
-
Start making your cookies around 45 minutes before you want to cook them. The mixture is very soft and you need time to chill the dough for 30 minutes in the fridge.
-
Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
-
Put the butter, salt and both of the sugars into a large bowl and using an electric whisk mix until fluffy. This should take 3-4 minutes.
-
Add the egg and vanilla extract/paste and continue to whisk until thoroughly mixed.
-
Add the flour and baking powder to the butter mixture and beat until incorporated. Alternatively, fold in by hand.
-
Fold in the hazelnuts and white chocolate chunks until evenly mixed throughout. The dough will be quite soft and sticky at this stage. (NB hold a few nuts and chocolate chunks back, just 4-5, to add into the last cookie.)
-
Divide the dough into rough balls, (I use 30g/1 large tablespoon of dough per cookie) and place them, close together on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Roll gently into a neater shape and then stick on the toppings. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes (or the freezer for a minimum of 15 minutes) to harden a little.
-
Five minutes before you want to cook your cookies, preheat oven to Fan Oven 160°C/180°C/350°F/Gas 4 and line your baking trays with baking parchment if necessary.
-
Place the cookie dough balls spread out on baking trays. Depending on the size of your baking sheet, I cook between 4 - 6 at a time.
-
Baking one tray at a time: bake for 10 - 12 minutes. (I cook mine for 11 minutes.)
Baking two trays at a time: add one minute to the total time to cook. Bake for half this time and then quickly swap the trays over i.e. put the top tray on the lower shelf and the tray from the lower shelf and on the higher shelf and cook for the remaining time.
(So for one tray I cook for 11 minutes and 2 trays for 6 minutes, swap the trays and then another 6 minutes = 12 minutes on total.)
-
The cookies are cooked when: they have spread out, are starting to brown on the edges and look ever so slightly underdone. They should still be soft in the middle. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.
Recipe Notes
Equipment:
- Kitchen scales and measuring spoons
- Electric whisk and mixing bowl
- Chopping board and knife
- Baking sheets lined with baking parchment, if necessary
Brown Butter: if you would like to replace the unsalted butter with brown butter, you should use 105g brown butter and add 20ml milk. For more information on Brown Butter, please see my post.
Cooking from frozen: allow 1 – 2 minutes extra cooking time.
Weighing the ingredients:
You can either weigh your ingredients and then add them to the mixing bowl or you can weigh your ingredients directly into your mixing bowl. Simply put the bowl on the scales and zero the scales. Make sure you remember to zero them in between adding each new ingredient.