World Nutella Day

Blogger bleeding espresso comments on my second Nutella cookie post from late December:

Fellow Nutella lover here wondering if you would be interested in celebrating World Nutella Day on February 5th?

Why, yes, yes I would. Here's bleeding espresso's post about it. She writes:

Nutella is more than just a “chocolaty hazelnut spread,” it is a way of life. From childhood memories to oozing hot crepes, from breakfasts on vacation to free-spooning sessions on the couch, Nutella is prominent in the memories of many children and grown-up children in the world.

My first exposure to Nutella is much more recent than hers -- I was fully grown before I had ever heard of the stuff -- but my attachment is none diminished for all that. And so I will do my part to make World Nutella Day a success. See that you do the same.

Nutella Redux Redux Redux

With Nutella cookies conquered, the time has come to move on to other Nutella-based goodies. Ice cream sounded both good and easy, so I decided to try that. There apparently are two different principal variations in Nutella ice cream: one with the Nutella thoroughly integrated with the ice cream base, and one with the Nutella swirled in. The integrated version sounded more idiot-proof, and so that's the one that I went with. A quick Google search revealed a not-too-threatening recipe by Giada De Laurentis from the Food Network. It's rated as easy, users give it 5 out of 5 stars, and it supposedly only takes 15 minutes of actual work. What can possibly go wrong?

Well, if you're an incompetent cook, a lot. Well, maybe not a lot, but enough. It's a custard ice cream, meaning that it contains eggs. And that the eggs have to be tempered. And I apparently couldn't temper eggs if my life. So after curdling the eggs, I decided to call it a day.

The next day, having regained my courage, I decided to try again, only without the eggs. I quickly found another recipe from a food-centric blog called Hungry in Hogtown, this time a non-custard with the Nutella swirled in. This looked even more idiot-proof than Giada De Laurentis's. Here are the details:

250 ml (1 cup) 35% heavy cream
250 ml (1 cup) 3.25% milk
1 vanilla bean or substitute vanilla extract
110 g (1/2 cup) sugar
120 g (1/3 cup) Nutella
10 ml (2 tsp) canola oil

Combine cream, milk, sugar, and scraped vanilla seeds and pod and heat to 175F/79C.

Chill.

One hour before churning the ice cream, heat the Nutella in the top of a double boiler over barely simmering water. Stir in the oil, then remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Freeze ice cream as per maker's instructions. At the last moment, add the room temperature Nutella mixture to the ice cream. Do not overchurn after this point or the Nutella will incorporate into the ice cream, rather than forming a stripe.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, except I added probably a third more Nutella than it called for. If a little is good, a lot is better, right? I don't know what went wrong, but the Nutella-canola oil mixture never did form much of a swirl. Instead, it immediately broke up into tiny little grains of Nutella. Not particularly visually appealing, but still pretty tasty. I don't know if it was a function of the ice cream maker (I used a Cuisinart) or of the recipe, but it was exceptionally smooth and creamy. The whole vanilla bean also made for an intense vanilla flavor, with little bursts of Nutella. I thought that it was very tasty, although it would have been better if we could have waited long enough for it to freeze solid. I like it, but I owe it to Nutella to try, try again. Letitia thinks that it wouldn't be the best ice cream to use for making Nutella cookie ice cream sandwiches because the ice cream would overshadow the cookies. She's probably right.

(Incidentally, if you're looking for Nutella, you should look at Costco. They have a two pack of the 26.5 ounce bottles for a little over $8. The cheapest I have seen the 26.5 ounce bottle elsewhere is around $6. )

Nutella Redux Redux

I believe that I am finally happy with my Nutella cookie recipe. You may recall that the first attempt resulted in cookies with good flavor but poor shape and that the second attempt resulted in cookies with good shape and flavor but that had a texture that was a bit too crumbly. This third attempt was exactly what I was hoping for when I originally went looking for a Nutella cookie recipe. This is very similar to the recipe from the second attempt, only with significantly more Nutella.

12.5 oz (2.5 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
0.5 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening (one of those prepacked sticks)
7 oz (1 cup packed) dark brown sugar
7 oz (1 cup) granulated sugar
18.5 oz Nutella
1 cup chopped hazelnuts
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat the shortening in with the paddle attachment of the mixer until it's broken up, then cream it with the two sugars until all is integrated and fluffy. Mix in the Nutella, followed by the chopped hazelnuts. Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add this dry mixture to the mixing bowl in three increments, integrating each one before adding the next. The resulting dough should be fairly dry and should barely stick to the mixer paddle. Chill dough while oven preheats to 350 degrees F. Scoop out dough with ice cream scooper around 1.5 inches in diameter onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper -- they should be around 2.5 inches between cookies, and I can get 3 rows of three on a standard-sized cookie sheet. Press down each cookie with a fork dipped in flour, then sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating cookie sheet 180 degrees after 5 minutes. Recipe makes around 48 cookies.

I like them. Big E likes them. Mamacita's neighbor Lisa likes them. Mamacita said that she liked the second attempt better, but I suspect that she was smoking crack at the time. They're not perfect, but they're good enough for government work.

Incidentally, Big E had a wonderful idea about what to do with these. He suggested using them to make ice cream sandwiches -- maybe some ice cream between two cookies. That would indeed be very tasty, I think. Maybe with Nutella ice cream? Hmmmm. If I could only find a good recipe for that...

Nutella Redux

My initial attempt at Nutella cookies produced good flavor but not enough puffiness. Use more transfat, said Mamacita. Consider using baking powder in addition to baking soda, said Letitia. Add more flour, said my mother. All three made sense, so I began looking for a recipe for peanut butter cookies that used both baking power and baking soda, shortening instead of butter, and relatively more flour than the recipe I adapted for my first attempt. I couldn't find a peanut butter cookie recipe that had all of these attributes, but I did find one that was close from The New Best Recipe from the people who put out Cook's Illustrated magazine. It uses butter instead of shortening, though, so that was an easy substitution. Here's what I ended up making:

12.5 oz (2.5 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
0.5 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening (one of those prepacked sticks)
7 oz (1 cup packed) dark brown sugar
7 oz (1 cup) granulated sugar
14.5 oz Nutella
1 cup chopped hazelnuts
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat the shortening in with the paddle attachment of the mixer until it's broken up, then cream it with the two sugars until all is integrated and fluffy. Mix in the Nutella, followed by the chopped hazelnuts. Beat in the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add this dry mixture to the mixing bowl in three increments, integrating each one before adding the next. The resulting dough should be fairly dry and should barely stick to the mixer paddle. Chill dough while oven preheats to 350 degrees F. Scoop out dough with ice cream scooper around 1.5 inches in diameter onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper -- they should be around 2.5 inches between cookies, and I can get 3 rows of three on a standard-sized cookie sheet. Press down each cookie with a fork dipped in flour, then sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating cookie sheet 180 degrees after 5 minutes. Recipe makes around 48 cookies.

These cookies were indeed poofier than the first batch. They were also drier. I think I didn't add quite enough Nutella. But they were pretty tasty.

Nutella!

Peanut butter cookies are my favorites, and I especially like them when they have Hershey's Kisses put on top just after they come out of the oven. I had been wondering how Nutella would work in cookies -- it pretty much has the same consistency as peanut butter, and I would thought that the combination of chocolate and hazelnut would make an excellent cookie similar to peanut butter but with a delicious and unique twist. I Googled Nutella cookie recipes but could not find anything all-Nutella that seemed to be the style I was going for. The closest I found was this one posted on Visual Recipes by chizad, which is half peanut butter and half Nutella. (I figured out later that it was an adaptation of an Alton Brown recipe for peanut butter cookies in I'm Just Here For More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking -- not that chizad hid that or anything; I just can't read.) I decided to take chizad's recipe and add more Nutella in place of the peanut butter for an all-Nutella cookie. Here's the recipe that I ended up following:

340g/1.5 cup unsalted butter, softened
284g/1.5 cup granulated sugar
284g/1.75 cup dark brown sugar
78g/0.5 cup canola oil
568g/2 cup Nutella
0.5 cup chopped hazelnuts
3 large beaten eggs
9g/2 tsp vanilla extract
510g/3.75 cup all purpose flour
6g/3 tsp baking soda
9g/1.5 tsp salt
6 dozen Hershey's Kisses, unwrapped
Some extra granulated sugar for sprinkling on tops of cookies.

Cream the butter with the granulated and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, then oil and Nutella. To this mixture, add the whisked-together mixture of flour, salt, and baking soda in three increments, incorporating each increment before adding the next. Chill the resulting dough. Dish out the chilled dough in golf-ball-sized balls onto a parchment-covered cookie sheet, then press down with a fork dipped in flour (to prevent sticking). Sprinkle granulated sugar on the tops of the cookies. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for around 15 minutes. Place one Hershey's Kiss in the center of each cookie immediately after removing from the oven. Let cookies set up on cookie sheet for three or four minutes before transferring to cooling racks.

I actually made these over two days. Yesterday was largely a disaster. I didn't chill the dough enough, my portion control was bad, and the cookie sheets I was using were not allowing for even heating of the cookies. So, I left the remaining dough in the refrigerator overnight and bought new (and bigger) cookie sheets and an ice cream scooper to do the portioning. Today's results were better and more consistent. The flavor was good (although I wish that the Nutella had been a bit more overt), and I ate entirely too many of them as they were cooling. The problem, though, was that finished cookies weren't poofy enough for my taste. They were pretty much flat. Mamacita thinks that this is due to the lack of partially-hydrogenated fats in the dough and suggests that I try using shortening instead of butter. I was thinking that maybe more flour and some baking powder would help. Anybody have any other ideas?

Nutella!

Look good? It's a crepe stuffed with Nutella, banana slices, and whipped cream. I went out and bought bananas and Nutella after seeing this picture. I have neither the talent nor the energy to make crepes, but the combination is right tasty on toast.