chocolate hazelnut cookies

Encouraged by the recent success of the double chocolate fairy cake and with some chocolate leftover, I decided to try my hands on the chocolate hazelnut cookies from the Peyton and Byrne British Baking cookbook. This is definitely my new most favourite cookbook.

The chocolate hazelnut cookies turned out great! Initially, I was suprised by how sticky and wet the mixture was. I thought I misread the recipe and haven't added enough flour. However all was well.

My only tip is to leave plenty of space around the cookies on the baking tray as they expand more than twice the size. I learned through the hard way when my first batch of 6 cookies becomes 1 big cookie.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
100g whole hazelnut
140g unsalted butter
90g demerara sugar
80g caster sugar
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
170g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g dark chocolate chips

1. Prepheat oven to 180C
2. Toast hazelnuts in hot oven for 10 minutes. Remove skins and roughly chop the nuts. Set aside.
3. In a bowl, cream butter and sugars until creamy.
4. Add egg and then yolk. Mix well.
5. Sift flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda and gently mix into the butter mixture.
6. Stir in the dark chocolate chips.
7. Divide dough in half and shape each half into a log about 4cm thick. Slice the log into 6 pieces, each about 2cm thick and place these on the baking tray about 6cm apart.
8. Baked for 15-18 minutes until golden in colour but still soft in the centre.

Recipe from: Peyton and Byrne British Baking