nuts + chocolate = need I say more?

every well-stocked kitchen
should have some...

Yesterday, my boss was out sick and Hanna suggested that we make her cookies as a get well treat. We adapted a thumbprint cookie recipe from our favorite vegan cookie book, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, by using Nutella instead of jam. When I took them in to work this afternoon, Elaine declared the experiment a success and suggested that perhaps she should call in sick more often if this would be the result! Since Hanna and I more or less agreed with her, I figured we should share our recipe with the rest of you good folks.

Chocolate-Almond-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies
adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup almond butter*
1/3 cup chocolate almond milk*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup hazelnuts, ground or finely chopped*
About 1/3 cup Nutella (for filling)

*we've made these cookies with a variety of ground nuts, nut butters, and types of milk (dairy and non-dairy), so feel free to experiment! basically, this is a totally forgiving recipe. what I listed here is what we used last night.

1) Preheat oven to 350 fahrenheit

2) In a medium mixing bowl, mix oil, brown sugar, nut butter, milk and vanilla extract until smooth.

3) Add dry ingredients: flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, and ground nuts. Mix until thoroughly incorporated. The dough will be pliable, kind of like homemade playdough.

4) Roll about a tablespoon of dough in your hands to form each cookie. Place on a cookie sheet roughly an inch and a half apart (the cookies won't spread, but you need room to press them down into rounds).

5) Press your thumb into each cookie to create the thumbprint dimple.

6) Bake 15-18 minutes and remove from cookie sheet to a cooling rack.

7) Once the cookies have cooled slightly from just-out-of-the-oven hot (but not cooled entirely), spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of Nutella into the center of each cookie. The Nutella should melt down just enough to fill each center.

8) Eat now or later. Do remember to share.

NOTE: If storing, cookies should not be stacked on top of one another since the Nutella will generally stay soft enough to glue the cookies together. We haven't tried putting them in the fridge, but this might make the centers hard enough for more compact storage.