Brown Butter Hazelnut Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookie

For the past 6 months I’ve been recipe testing in the kitchen for the perfect ccc (chocolate chip cookie). Every time I made a test batch, I liked it, but there was nothing special that made it completely stand out from the other thousands of chocolate chip recipe’s you can find online. For the holiday season I took inspiration from my favourite holiday treat I would receive in my Christmas stocking every year: ferrero rocher. The perfect bite size treat with notes of hazelnuts, and chocolate perfectly wrapped in a beautiful gold foil ball. I wanted to take some of my favourite traits of a ferrero rocher into cookie form. This lacy edge cookie with a chewy middle is truly all I could ever ask for. A nutty flavour profile from the brown butter, and toasted hazel nuts, subtle notes of espresso, and perfectly balanced with dark rich chocolate, and flaky sea salt. I hope you like, and enjoy them as much as I do!

Ingredients

• 1 cup + 1 tbsp All purpose flour

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp table salt

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 5 tsp espresso powder ( I use Nescafe gold)

• 1 cup + 1/4 cup hazel nuts

• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp dark brown sugar

• 1/3 white sugar

• 10 tbsp unsalted butter

• 1 egg (room temp)

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

• 1 bar 70% Lindt chocolate

• 1 tbsp ice cold water

• flaky sea salt

• edible gold flakes (optional)

Instructions

1. Start by roasting your hazelnuts. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Roast the hazel nuts on a lined baking sheet for 8-10 minutes. Once fragrant, let them cool off for 10 minutes.

2. Use a dish towel to easily rub off the hazel nut skins. Take 1/3 cup of the roasted hazel nuts to set aside for the toppings.

3. with the remaining nuts throw them in a food processor, and blend until you’ve reached a fine sand texture to achieve hazel nut flour. Tightly pack 3/4 cup of the freshly grounded hazel flour in the measuring cup.

4. Brown your unsalted butter in a small sauce pan on medium heat. This should take 7-10 minutes. Once brown specs start to form, immediately add your 3/4 cup of hazel nut flour. Stir with a wooden spoon to further toast your hazel nut flour on the stove top for 30-45 seconds. ( Make sure you don’t burn your brown butter)

5. Transfer your brown butter mixture in a large bowl, add 1 tbsp of ice cold water to cook the mixture down. Set aside until completely cooled.

6. Begin to prep your toppings by taking the left over 1/3 cup of toasted hazel nuts, and splitting them in halves. They should be fairly easy to open if you find the centre. Once you have approximately 30 halves of hazel nuts, set them aside. Chop the remaining hazel nuts left over into small chunks with a knife.

7. Take your Lindt chocolate bar and split it in half. Half of the chocolate will be chopped into large chunks for the topping of the cookie. And the other half will be chopped into small chunks to distribute throughout the cookie dough batter, leave aside.

8. Once the brown butter has cooled down add your dark brown sugar, and white sugar mix with a whisk. Add the remaining wet ingredients vanilla extract, and egg.

9. In a medium bowl prep your dry ingredients all purpose flour ( scoop AP flour into a measuring cup with spoon), salt, cinnamon, and espresso powder. Mix until combined.

10. Add the flour mixture with the wet mixture, stir with a wooden spoon. Once just combined, add your small chunks of chocolate to distribute throughout the cookie dough mixture.

11. Set the cookie dough mixture in the fridge for 30-45 minutes to let it firm up. After the cookie dough has firmed up a bit use a large cookie dough scoop (approximately 3 tbsp) to scoop out your dough onto a lined parchment baking sheet until you reached 10 cookies.

12. Begin to add your toppings. Large chunks of chocolate, hazelnut halves, and chopped hazel nut chunks. ( each cookie should have 3 hazel nut halves on top)

13. Transfer the cookie dough tray in the fridge over night-24 hours. This will let the dough fully hydrate

14. The next day preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Bake your cookies on a lined parchment baking tray 6 cookies at a time for 12-14 minutes.

15. Once the cookies are straight out of the oven, sprinkle with flaky sea salt and enjoy!