Chocolate Nutella Cookies

Today I was eating my favorite SNYDER pretzels and then decided to try it dipped in Nutella. It was GOOD! I'm sure you all gathered by now that I LOVE cookies. So I got to thinking I HAVE to make a Nutella Pretzel cookie. I found a good looking recipe HERE. No egg, weird, but it worked! Tastes like a brownie!! Crazy good.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/4 c. flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2/3 c. cocoa powder
• 1/2 c. (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t. vanilla
• 1/2 t. hazelnut extract *I just used 2 t. vanilla
• 1/3 c. Nutella
• 1/3 c. milk

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugars.
3. Blend in extract and Nutella spread until smooth.
4. Mix in HALF of the dry ingredients.
   
5. Stir in the milk until combined.
6. Then add in the remaining dry ingredients.
7. Chill dough for at least 15 minutes. *I chilled the dough for a few hours.
8. Bake @ 325 for 10-12 minutes.
   

*I wanted to play with the cookies a bit. So I tried out different toppings for the cookie. It was fun! Check it out below....

FYI- The chocolate candies and pretzels were topped immediately after the cookie came out of the oven. NOT before.

1. Plain cookie dough (chilled)
2. Course chopped pretzels
3. Rolo in the middle
4. chopped pretzels inside
   
5. Semi-sweet chocolate chips
6. chopped pecans + Semi-sweet chocolate chips
7. whole pretzel in middle
8. Rolo in middle + finely chopped pretzel on top
   
9. Craisens... My 5 yr. old requested this one. He LOVED it!
10. Peanut butter Chips
11. Ball rolled in sugar + topped with Hershey Kiss
12. Ball rolled in chopped pecans + topped with Hershey Kiss
13. Topped with Reese's Peanut Butter cup

14. Also plain, but most brownie like.
I thought this one was interesting because I didn't expect it to turn out this way. The dough was soft and no longer cold when I put it in the oven. I baked it an extra couple minutes longer than the other cookies. Perfect-o.

Although I wanted to, I didn't try them all! I just really don't want to gain 50 pounds over night, so I had #8 the Rolo with pretzel on top. It was fantastic! Brownie like cookie with caramel in the middle and crunchy salted pretzels on top. WINNER! I also had a bite of the #14... couldn't resist it. Totally had the same texture and taste as a brownie. YUM.