TWD: Chunky Hazelnut and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was for Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters which, to me, sounds as great as the name is long - I love PB and chocolate, Reeses being my fav-o-rite candy. As I mentioned before, however, we've got a little one 'round here that may have a peanut allergy, so I had to ditch the Peanut Butter.

Enter in

If you've never tried this chocolate hazelnut concoction, well, you simply must. It's realllllly good, especially on a slice of french bread. I like it this way for nostalgia sake I guess, because I first tried nutella when I was in France as an exchange student way back in high school. Unfortunately, it's not particularly inexpensive, but c'est la vie.

I really needed to add some chunkiness to these, too (mainly because I like nuts, but then there's also the whole "Chunky" thing right in the front of the title). So conveniently, I snagged the very last bag of chopped hazelnuts at Meijer (for a minute there I was sweating in the baking aisle - you gotta be kidding me, no hazelnuts in the nut section?! but then there it was, buried under the walnut pieces - yessssss!). This was quite a find, because if you've ever had to crack and skin hazelnuts, you know what a real chore this can be, and I just wasn't up to doing all that.

These cookies were very easy to make. Really, I'd only have to recommend one thing and that's to follow the chilling directions. I didn't chill the dough after the first batch went in the oven and, in hind sight, I wish I had. The cookies that were chilled looked better (see exhibits a and b below) and tended not to spread as much:



The kids really enjoyed these, and yeah, so did the grown-ups. All in all, I'd have to give the nutella twist on these the thumbs up. Try it, you'll see.


Little Miss K approves, too (sorry for the blur, but this was definitely an action shot - had to hurry before that cookie was a-goner):



Thanks to Stefany at Proceed With Caution for choosing this week's recipe! (You can find the recipe on her site.)

Looking forward to next week? I sure am: Chocolate Whopper Malted Drops.