The other night I made the cookie recipe that I mentioned on my last post –Nutella Chip Cookies with Homemade Nutella Chips via The Ivory Hut because my cookie jar was empty and sad. 

First and foremost the cookie dough is absolutely delicious and the short and sweet version of this post – cookies were made and eagerly devoured.

The author made it seem so easy to make homemade Nutella chips that I thought I could do it and that everything would be easy peasy.  The author ‘updated’ her post sharing how if you want even more hazelnut flavor, just add the butter to the Nutella and leave out the chocolate chips.  Cool I thought – I want extra Nutella–y flavor goodness in my cookie! Well, somewhere along the directions I must have misunderstood because making the Nutella ‘chips’ was a nightmare. That’s not quite accurate; the ‘making’ of the chips was not that big of a deal, the mixing of the chips into the cookie dough was a nightmare.

I don’t have an official double broiler, so I go the ghetto, or as Mr. E. would say cost conscientious, way and use a glass dish over a pot of water to melt the Nutella and butter together. 

I choose to spread the mixture onto a foil lined baking sheet, instead of piping into chips, since both ways were demonstrated in the recipe.  This was mistake number one.  At the time I thought it was a great idea.  I have used this foil lined technique for fudge, cakes, brownies, granola bars, pretty much everything, so I figured it would work well.  Well, when I went to break the slab of frozen Nutella into pieces, it started to melt before I could really get anything accomplished – so back in the freezer it went.  After about 10 minutes I pulled it out and cut it into pieces.  Then I started to lift the pieces from the foil – but it started to melt and so back in the freezer.  Once it was again hard, I pulled it out and realized that the foil stuck to quite a few pieces and was time consuming to pick off…. Let me fast forward a bit… just keep saying in the freezer – out of the freezer and you’ll get the picture. 🙂  Once cut and separated from the foil I left the chips in the freezer until I was ready to add to the dough. 

I think browned butter is my new favorite flavor enhancer!  Rather than following the directions and pouring the butter into the sugar, I removed from heat – added the remaining butter, sugar and vanilla to the skillet with the browned butter and whisked well.  I then let the mixture cool and added the egg and the egg yolk, whisking well after each addition.  Then I poured the mixture into the flour and stirred. 

This is where I think I made mistake number two.  I put the dough in the fridge to chill because it was somewhat runny.  When I pulled it out and let it soften a bit I attempted to mix in the frozen Nutella pieces – NIGHMARE!  HA HA HA  It’s only funny now because the cookies were delicious.  At the time I’m pretty sure Erik removed the dogs from the room to protect their ears from my shouts of frustration.  The pieces very quickly started to soften so much so that it was difficult to mix them in.  I ended up forming clumps of dough in my hand and, by hand, adding a few Nutella pieces. 

Fortunately once they baked it didn’t matter and they were scrumptious!  It was just an exhausting process LOL.  I’ll definitely be making these again, but with modifications – probably less butter, they are quite greasy. I’ll also need to learn a bit more about how to make the Nutella chips a little sturdier.

I haven’t re-typed the recipe since I didn’t make any ingredient modifications.  Please do visit the site using the links above and give this recipe a try.  It made a ton of Nutella chips, which is really nice, so the next time I make this recipe I’ll have at least half of it already done!