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Winter Beet and Pomegranate Salad with Maple Candied Pecans + Balsamic Citrus Dressing.
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{This post is brought to you buy the Turkish Hazelnut Promotion Group. I have partnered with them to bring you these KILLER Chocolate Hazelnut Christmas Cookies. The perfect treat for Santa and his elves! 🙂 }
Cookies, cookies, cookies. Gimme all the Christmas cookies…
Especially those stuffed with chocolate hazelnut spread and milk chocolate caramel. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love holiday sugar cookies, but let’s be honest, you all know I’m all about the chocolate, and umm, these cookies? They are no joke, talk about a chocolate lovers dream!
It’s also no secret what a huge fan I am of chocolate hazelnut spread (little Asher can’t get through a day without it!), so naturally a cookie of this nature was bound to happen sooner or later.
With the holiday season in full force, bakers are baking, the Christmas shopping is happening and Santa’s doing his thing getting ready for his big night.
So what does all this mean?
It means you sort of have to make these cookies happen.
Hear me out. Whether you’re running around trying to get the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, planning the perfect holiday party or just trying to get dinner on the table and the kids into bed at a semi reasonable hour, these are the cookies that will totally save your sanity.
Picture this: you get home from the beyond crowded mall after first putting in a full day of work. I’m thinking it’s maybe Thursday or Friday night? You still need to make dinner, clean up the house, finish the laundry… yada, yada, yada, yada. Your to-do list could go on for miles. Sure, you could do all those things and go to bed exhausted OR you could be smart…
Light a candle, put some Christmas music on, bake these cookies, make a fast salad while the cookies bake, eat your salad (you know, so you have something in your stomach other than cookies), remove your cookies from the oven, pour a giant glass of cold milk, find your spot on the couch, turn on a sappy Christmas movie and enjoy a cookie or two (hey, you had salad for dinner!).
Major chill time with some chocolate. Sounds like the perfect night, right? Well, at least that’s my perfect night. Hey, maybe we should both should try it?!?
I bet you have all these ingredients in your pantry right now.
…chocolate: check (always)
…baking essentials (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder): check
…eggs: check
…butter: check
…vanilla extract: check
…chocolate hazelnut spread: check
…milk chocolate caramel: okay, so you may not have these… BUT
For this recipe, I used a mix of bittersweet and dark chocolate since I didn’t want the cookies to be overly sugary. The cookie filling is pretty sweet, plus there’s a light sprinkle of pomegranate sugar on top, so the bittersweet and dark chocolate combo really balances the sweetness in these cookies nicely.
The cookie itself is pretty dense, almost like a brownie. My secret ingredient is a little bit of cream cheese. The cream cheese keeps the cookies from being cakey and also makes them incredibly moist and soft. I had to test this cookie recipe several times, but I found that the best way to make them is also the simplest way. Once the dough is all mixed, instead of refrigerating, let the cookies sit on the counter for 10 minutes or so to let the dough stiffen just slightly. The softer dough makes stuffing the cookies much easier. Then just bake! If you’re trying to make the cookies ahead of time, once you’ve stuffed the cookies, you can chill them until ready to bake, but I would take them out of the fridge while the oven preheats to help the cookies come to room temperature before baking. When the cookies are super cold, they don’t really spread at all and it leaves you with a pretty large cookie.
Once the cookies come out of the oven, you can lightly drizzle them with melted chocolate and sprinkle with just a pinch of the pomegranate sugar, which is um… awesome and SO festive!
I can’t lie; I did add a little food coloring to my pomegranate sugar. The sugar just turned out too pink for my liking, reminding me more of Valentines Day than Christmas. Typically I am highly against food coloring, but I only used a tiny little drop and it made all the difference. If you don’t mind the pink color the pomegranate juice gives off, you can omit the food coloring (or maybe use a natural food coloring?). The pomegranate sugar is definitely not needed, but it adds such a fun and festive touch. If you’re not into it, you can simply leave it off completely or add holiday sprinkles for a little Christmas cheesiness!
Also, little miss Asher…AKA mini Mrs. Clause, deemed these Chocolate Hazelnut and Caramel Stuffed Brownie Cookies her favorite cookies ever! Granted the girl has a serious addiction to chocolate hazelnut spread, but then who doesn’t? The stuff is spoon worthy. <–truth.
But, these cookies are far better than any spoon. Caramel + chocolate hazelnut center!?! Brownie cookie?!?! Not even the Grinch could say NO to these.
One last note: I’m really excited to share that I have partnered with Turkish Hazelnuts to bring awareness to their “Falling for Hazelnuts” Sweepstakes this December. The Sweepstakes has a $500 prize and if you love all things hazelnut and chocolate, you can enter to win here on their Facebook page.
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
That center though, I can’t even…
I love it, perfect for entertaining, and gift giving.
Could you tell us specifically which chocolate-covered caramels you used? Trying to get an idea of the size and caramel consistency. 🙂
I’m def gonna make these for my coworkers! They’ll love em!
Hey Ross! I use Dove milk chocolate covered caramels. Hope you love these and thank you!
Just wondering if your chocolate covered caramels were hard caramels or soft centers? These look AMAZING. I feel some baking coming on.
Thanks Lisa!! I used Dove Milk chocolate soft caramels.
These look amazing!! I’m wondering if I could leave out the caramels and just make them with nutella…
Hey Jamie! Yes, that would be amazing!!
Oh these are KILLER alright Tieghan!! On my Christmas cookie list!
These are stuffed with so much goodness!!! I love this recipe!
These are so beautiful. Love the Salted Pomegranate Sugar.
Oh my gosh! I just told my friend that I was having the worst day and wanted to make chocolate hazelnut cookies when I got home and then I came on here (like every day…) and saw this. You read my mind 🙂 Thanks for making my day so much brighter!
Oh my sweet heavens. I’m drooooling over these Tieghan! So delicious!
love the sound of that pomegranate sugar; what a great way to add a bit of brightness (flavor wise and color wise; almost thought it was peppermint at first) and tang to rich cookies!
Whoa. These look amazing.
Thanks Michelle!
I think I totaly need these in my life. Like right now!! Oh man…
http://bloglairdutemps.blogspot.pt/
That chocolate melting on top of those cookies looks insanely good! And pomegranate sugar?! Brilliant! Love! <3
Love the idea of eating a salad prior to the enjoyment of these cookies. These look Ahh-mazing!!! And that pomegranate sugar is beautiful!
I watch White Christmas and bake Christmas cookies each year and I’m off school today so it’s time to bake cookies and the new recipe looks really good.