Gluten Free Nutella Cookies

A gluten-free, brownie-like cookie made from everyone’s favorite chocolate hazelnut spread!

Confession: Nutella isn’t something I usually keep in my pantry. I’m generally too busy eating peanut butter or homemade almond butter off a spoon to think about the famous chocolate hazelnut spread. But a few days ago, I got an intense craving for it. It might have been because I walked by a display of it at the supermarket and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet, or it might have been the universe telling me to make these cookies. Probably a little bit of both.

Originally, I didn’t want to use any flour in these, but the Nutella is a little too runny to make the puffy cookies I wanted without a bit of bulking up from some Cup4Cup Gluten Free Flour. I only used about ¼ cup of GF flour in these, and the batch easily made 18 cookies. If you’re into math, that’s 1/72 of a cup of GF flour per cookie…so basically, it’s like using no flour.

The coolest thing about these cookies is the serious distinction between the outside and the inside. You can probably tell from the picture that the outside of the cookie forms a little crust, almost like the edges of a brownie. Biting into it initially is like biting into a macaron–there’s a bit of crunch and then your teeth sink into a soft, chewy center. The inside is like a just-baked fudgy brownie that happens to taste like Nutella. So the best kind of brownie. The two textures work so well together and make these cookies unique and delicious.

After making these cookies, my pantry will probably never be without a jar of Nutella again. I think peanut butter and almond butter will forgive me.

Gluten Free Nutella Cookies
Prep: 5 min + chilling   Cook: 8 minutes   Makes: 1.5 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup nutella
1 egg, room temp
1 cup brown light brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
¼ cup all purpose gluten free flour (I used Cup4Cup.)
1 tsp baking soda

Directions:
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together the egg, nutella, sugar and vanilla in a stand mixer until very well combined–will take few minutes.
2. Add in the gluten free flour and baking soda and mix for a minute until combined. Batter will be soft and a bit oily, but if it’s very sticky, add up to two tablespoons extra gluten free flour.
3. Use a 2-inch cookie scoop and form dough balls. Flatten slightly. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or days. (This is to keep the cookies from spreading so much when they bake.)
4. Preheat oven to 350. On a parchment lined pan, bake 8-10 minutes or until barely set. Let cool on pan for 5-10 minutes before moving to rack to finish cooling.