Heya!

I’ve got just the thing for you to bring to your next holiday party which will raise your social status by a few notches guaranteed!  😉

Adorable, tempting, irresistible, chocolatey, soft, fluffy, delicious & NUTELLA are some of the adjectives I would use to entice you into making/eating these whoopee pies…as if you needed to be enticed. 😉

Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Yield: 14

Ingredients

Chocolate Whoopie Pies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup (135 grams) brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated or caster sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 + 3/4 cup (245 grams) plain flour
1/2 cup (40 grams) cocoa powder
3/4 cup (180 ml) buttermilk

Nutella Cream

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2.5 to 3 cups (375 grams ) icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (200 grams) Nutella
2-3 tablespoons milk

Notes:

• Cover the batter with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. The dough will be impossible to roll into balls if the batter is at room temperature.

• Once out of the freezer and rolled into balls, let them sit a while at room temperature before baking. When baked from a very cold state, it’ll result in wrinkled tops and any bumps in the dough will not cook down. Unsightly.

• I got a little excited when making these and put a little too much Nutella cream in my pies, thinking “YES, MORE NUTELLA IS BETTER”, with crazy eyes and all…but I was wrong; it threw the cookie:cream ratio off. Too much cream for the cookie 😀 I made a batch with a more reasonable heaping 1tbsp of cream in the centre and they were perfect but feel free to experiment.

Directions

Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a small bowl combine flour, baking soda and cocoa powder. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugars with an electric mixer until pale and creamy.

Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined.

Gradually add the the dry ingredients to the wet. Do not over mix.

Add half the buttermilk and gently fold with a spatula or with your mixer on the lowest setting.

Add the rest of the buttermilk and combine again. It will be sticky and rather dense.

Cover the batter with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. This will help firm up the mixture so you can easily roll spoonfuls of the batter into balls using your hands – just like you would for traditional cookies. They will be a quite sticky but rolling them in your hands will help achieve a nice smooth finish. I used 1 rounded tablespoon of dough per ball.

Preheat the oven to 360 F (180 C).

Place the cookies onto the prepared trays, leaving ample space (min 2″) for them to spread out when cooking. Let them sit for a while at room temperature. (As I learned, if you put them into the oven while very cold, they won’t grow properly and will get wrinkly tops)

Bake for approximately 8-10 minutes. As with brownies, they might feel slightly undercooked but they’ll continue to bake and set even when out of the oven. Cool for a few minutes and then transfer the cookies onto a wire rack. While they are cooling, make the Nutella frosting.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until creamy.

Add the icing sugar, one cup at a time, and beat with the electric mixer until smooth and creamy.

Add the vanilla and beat again.

Add the Nutella and mix, adding the milk as needed. The frosting should be fairly firm yet spreadable.

Pipe or spoon about 1tbsp of the icing onto one whoopie pie and place another on top, pressing down delicately; continue until they’re all sandwiched. 

Enjoy!

Stephanie M.

Recipe discovered on: http://www.handletheheat.com/nutella-stuffed-chocolate-whoopie-pies/