Peanut Butter and Nutella Swirl Cookies

I had a very relaxing weekend down the Cape and stayed later than normal today, which means I got to do my Sunday baking with my parents double ovens and I had three times the counter space that I work with back in my Boston apartment. Double ovens make double cookie batches so much easier because there is no wait time in between batches … and we all know I’m  not a patient person.

My best friend from home came up for the weekend and we were sitting out on the boat today and she was asking what my cookie of the day was going to be. I had been thinking about it all morning and had no inspiration. So I went into my parents panty looking for inspiration. I came across a bottle of Nutella. I know nothing about Nutella. I don’t know if I’ve ever even had it before. I am not even sure why we had an unopened bottle. But it was inspiration, so that’s all I needed.

Given my lack of experience with the hazlenut spread, I decided to go to the interweb in search of some different recipes so I could get a better idea of how it works with different kinds of dough. I wasn’t in any place to improvise recipes today, so I found two that I really liked off the Lovin’ From The Oven blog. http://www.lovintheoven.com/

So here is cookie #1: Peanut Butter and Nutella Swirl cookies

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • Approx. 1/4 cup Nutella

Step 1: Cream together butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla. Gradually add the flour, baking soda and salt. When measuring Nutella, I find it’s helpful to spray the measuring cup first with nonstick spray so it’s easier to get out.


Step 2: Drizzle Nutella on top of the dough then swirl it through the dough with a butter knife. This part is not as tricky as it sounds, just use the butter knife to cut the nutella into the peanut butter dough so it makes a marbled pattern.

Step 3: Roll the dough into even size balls and spread evenly on a sil-pat or parchment lined baking sheet. Using a fork make a criss cross pattern to push the dough down.

Step 4: Bake at 350 degrees between 7 and 10 minutes.

And there you have it. Delicious sweet combination of peanut butter and Nutella. I’m definitely more of a fan of Nutella incorporated into baked goods than tasting it straight from the jar.