Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

Here's a cookie for the chocolate chip cookie lover who wants to add a few embellishments to take their cookies to the next level. Between the brown butter (which adds a nice nuttiness) and the rich, creamy Nutella, it's already a winner. But sprinkling sea salt on top is what keeps them from being cloying and probably what makes them so irresistible. 

I don't know how often I'll make these...to be honest, stuffing each dough ball with Nutella is kind of a pain-in-the-ass. Mostly because it's hard to get the dough very flat (since it's full of chips) and so it cracks. And the longer you sit there making them, the warmer (and oozier) the Nutella gets, so the harder it gets to encase it in the dough without it escaping through the cracks I mentioned earlier. Of course the more I eat them, the foggier my memory gets.

NUTELLA STUFFED BROWN BUTTER

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES WITH SEA SALT

Yield: 1 1/2 to 2 dozen large cookies

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup Nutella, chilled in refrigerator

coarse sea salt for sprinkling

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1.      Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When it begins to foam, start whisking constantly. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan; continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a large mixing bowl (to prevent burning). Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

2.      In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

3.      With an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, vanilla, and yogurt until combined. Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low-speed just until combined. Gently fold in all of the chocolate chips.

4.      Chill the dough for 2 hours in the refrigerator.

5.      Preheat oven to 350º F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

6.      Once dough is chilled, roll into balls (about 3-4 tablespoons each). Flatten each dough ball thinly into the palm of your hand. Place 2 teaspoons of chilled nutella in the middle and fold dough around it; gently roll back into a ball (it doesn’t have to be perfectly round). Make sure that the nutella is not seeping out of the dough. Add more dough if necessary. Place dough balls about 3 inches apart on baking sheet and very gently flatten just the tops with your hand.

7.      Bake cookies for 12-15 minutes or light golden brown. They will look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven.

8.      Immediately sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt while still warm. Let cookies cool completely before removing from baking sheets.

slightly adapted from ambitiouskitchen.com

melted butter getting foamy

brown butter

adding the sugars

adding the egg, vanilla & yogurt

adding the flour mixture

adding the chocolate chips

I used Ghiardelli...for some reason they're gigantic.
I think that might be one of the reasons my dough
was hard to flatten.

dough all mixed

chilled Nutella

Nutella on flattened dough ball

rolled back into a ball

I forgot to flatten the tops of mine
like the recipe says. Oh well.

baked

sprinkling with salt

I was kind of generous with the salt
(I figured some of it would fall off).

Nutella Stuffed Brown Butter
Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

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