Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Soft and chewy chocolate cookies filled with chopped hazelnuts.
If you’re a fan of chocolate + hazelnut like me, then you are going to LOVE these cookies. They’re rich, chocolaty, and have so much great nutty flavor and crunch from the hazelnuts.
These cookies were born out of necessity— I had just a few hours to make a treat for a party and my pantry was pretty empty. I had decided to make my go-to favorite chocolate cookies when I spied some chopped hazelnuts I had stashed in the freezer. I threw them in the dough at the last moment, and these wonderful cookies are the result. I’ve made them a few times since then and they’re always a hit wherever I take them.
I mean, who doesn’t love chocolate and hazelnuts?
I think I might be borderline obsessed with the chocolate-hazelnut combo. If you are too, you may want to check out these other recipes from my site— chocolate hazelnut ice cream, chocolate hazelnut sweet rolls, whole wheat chocolate chip hazelnut cookies, chocolate hazelnut covered strawberries, dark chocolate rocky road ice cream with hazelnuts, nutella brownies with hazelnuts, and chocolate hazelnut fudge sauce.
See, I told you. Obsessed!
baking tip:How to freeze cookie dough
Cookie dough freezes so well! And it’s a great way to plan ahead to enjoy fresh cookies whenever the craving hits. Here’s how to do it:
- Prepare cookie dough as directed and portion with a spoon or cookie scoop.
- Place cookie dough on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and do a quick freeze for about 1 hour until they’re frozen solid.
- Transfer cookie dough to a freezer ziplock bag, label, and store in the freezer for up to a month or more.
Freezing them this way means they aren’t one solid mass so you can grab individual cookie dough balls out of the freezer as you want!
Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter , at room temperature
- 1 ½ cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder , not dutch process
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup hazelnuts , very finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each. Add the vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to the wet mixture in the stand mixer and mix on low until combined. Add the chopped hazelnuts.
- Spoon onto the prepared baking sheet by rounded tablespoons. Bake until cookies are firm and cracked on top, about 10 minutes. Cookies will be very soft. Use a spatula to transfer them to a cooling rack and cool completely.
Recipe originally published August 2011. Photos have been updated.
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Great recipe!
After reading other reviews, I weighed the flour and cocoa (270 and 53 grams respectively). The dough felt pretty soft but I found I needed to roll the dough balls in my hands to smooth the surface; those baked directly from a cookie scoop weren’t very attractive and did not look like the photo. The ones I rolled in my hands were more domed than the picture but still pretty enough for a party and tasted wonderful.
Not soft — is something missing? Didn’t puff or crack. Tasted good warm, but don’t know if will get like a brick. I was disappointed.
Hmmm, how are you measuring your flour? It sounds like you may have accidentally added too much during measuring. See this post on how to measure flour correctly. I’m sorry they didn’t work out for you! Let me know if you need any more baking help.
These are the best chocolate cookies I’ve ever made! They were soft and chewy, just as advertised!
The dough was rather stiff — I added the equivalent of another 1/2 egg in liquid egg whites to make it easier to mix in my Kitchen-Aid.
I’m using these for Christmas cookies, so I rolled the dough into 1″ balls as I would for snowballs Then, pressed it on the cookie tray to make more uniform looking cookies.
Since the kids in my family are “choco-holics,” I made half of the batch even more decadent by adding 1/2 c. milk chocolate chips AND 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips.
Hi, followed the recipe as exactly but cookie dough didn’t spread at all. Remained the mound from scooping 🙁
My cookies did not turn out like the photo at all. They were dry and cakey and did not spread one bit; they kept the mound shape from the cookie scoop. I made sure to follow all the directions and even made a second batch to check myself. So, I too think something is off in the recipe. I would love it if the measurements were in grams, too. The raw cookie dough tastes amazing and the cookies taste like Nutella.
it would really help to have measurements in grams, as well as cups – so we can all just get on with the cooking!
These cookies were perfect! They satisfied my constant cookie craving, and unlike most cookie recipes, they weren’t too sweet.
Of course I fiddled with the recipe. I melted the butter, and then I mixed the cocoa right into it to bloom the cocoa. Also, I ended up having to use my hands to mix the dough.
You will be happy to hear, Brazil nuts and chocolate chips are excellent add-ins/substitutions. Really, I think you have such an excellent basic chocolate cookie recipe, any number of variations would be great: almonds, candied orange peel and walnuts, white chocolate chip, mint chocolate chips, butterscotch, and so on.
Well done!
Hi quick question what suger do I use
Hi, it’s a kind request. Pls add the grams instead of cups. Has I noticed the weight differs. I use measuring scale for baking. Thanks
There must be something out of proportion as the dough did not hold together and the cookies did not spread. Not very caves either, fairly dense
Good day!
Thank you kindly for the recipe. I was given some freshly roasted hazelnuts from a friend who lives on a hazelnut farm, and I wanted to do something special with them. I’m using a friends stove so the first bake was little overdone but I got it right on the second go. The only thing I noticed that was a bit funny was that the dough was really dry. The cheap mixer I was using couldn’t do the job and I wasn’t even really getting anywhere with the wooden spoon, so I went with the old god given tools and used my hands. I was debating adding a bit of water, milk, or more butter, but after double checking that I had the ingredients right I didn’t want to mess with the recipe. They turned out great! Delicious.. mmm.. can’t stop eating them.. had to give some away..
Thanks again! Will be checking your site for future recipes.
Thanks for the comment! I’ve had a few comments about the dough being on the dry side. I’ll have to bake them again and make sure everything’s right in the recipe. Glad you liked them though!
Did you ever verify this recipe?
I had all of these items on hand so I thought I’d give them a shot! I was surprised at how simple they were and I love the texture and appearance even though you don’t think they are fancy, they are a steps above my average chocolate chip cookie! Thank you for sharing, it was my first attempt at making a chocolate cookie 🙂
I made them and they looked pretty much exactly like the ones in your picture. Followed the recipe, except I added a tablespoon of Nutella for fun. The flavour was great, can’t say the same for the texture. I wanted chewy cookies and instead got a cakey-crumbly dry brownies. I think it may have to do with the fact the recipe calls for creaming the butter and not melting it.
I typed “Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies” into Google in attempts to satisfy my craving for this perfect combination of flavours. I was pleasantly surprised when I came across your blog and these amazing looking cookies! I can’t wait to give them a try. Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
These came out perfectly! I used less than you recommended for the chocolate and hazelnuts (because I was working with what I had in the kitchen), but they are still great! They puffed and cracked just like your pictures, and they taste sweet and light. I also added some cinnamon, just because. I will definitely use this recipe again, maybe with different flavors! Thank you. 🙂