Nutella Pretzel Cookies

It's become something of a tradition amongst a couple of my friends and I to watch a movie on Wednesday nights as a mid-week break, while munching on some delectable treat I bake in the afternoon. Last week, I decided I wanted to use up the remainder of some Ritter Sport Nutella my family bought me on their trip to Berlin in the fall, so I started looking for a good Nutella recipe. Baking with Nutella is something of a trend amongst the food blogging community recently, so there was an abundance of recipe for muffins, cupcakes, cakes, mousses... you name it. Though I was tempted by some of the decadent cupcake recipes in particular, I decided I wanted to make something a little lighter (cupcakes made with Nutella were topped with Nutella buttercream frosting!). I've had my eye on a basic M&M cookie recipe that looked unusually yummy, so I ended up deciding to merge my two inspirations: I would add Nutella to the M&M cookie recipe! Yet simply a Nutella cookie seemed too plain, and I didn't want to go the traditional route by adding chocolate pieces, so for a while I wrestled with the dilemma of what my second feature ingredient would be. And then - I don't know where it came from - inspiration struck in the form of pretzels.


This being the first time I've attempted to significantly adapt a recipe, I was worried what the end result would be. I didn't know how the wet to dry balance would be affected by the extra 2/3 cup of Nutella, and wondered whether the cookies would retain the promised soft chewiness after my tinkerings. I'm happy to report they turned out deliciously! I made a couple more changes after tasting them - less sugar, since the Nutella is so sweet on its own - and will now definitely add this to my cookie repertoire!

Unfortunately, I did not photograph these cookies, because I didn't bake them with a blog in mind, but here's a picture of the original M&M recipe:

Mmm, I may just have to try baking these, too!

Nutella Pretzel Cookies
adapted from this recipe

¾ cup unsalted butter
2 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup Nutella
1 cup crushed pretzels

Melt butter in the microwave, and let cool in the fridge while you gather the rest of the ingredients.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside
Measure the sugars into the bowl of your stand mixer, or another large bowl if using a hand mixer, and add melted butter. Mix until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Stir in Nutella.

Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in the pretzels.

Using a 2 tbsp ice cream scoop, portion out the cookies, and drop them into the bowl you used to mix the dry ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill for about an hour.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Get your cookie dough balls out of the fridge. Hold the dough ball with the fingertips of both hands and pull into 2 equal halves. Rotate the halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, join the halves together at their base, again forming a single ball, being careful not to smooth the dough’s uneven surface. Place the formed dough balls on the prepared baking sheet, jagged surface up, spacing them 2 ½  inches apart.

Bake until the cookies are light golden brown and the outer edges start to harden yet the centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes. DON'T over-bake them, or else when they cool they will be crunchy, and let's face it: no one likes crunchy cookies! Cool the cookies on the sheet. In general, these cookies tend to be crunchier once cooled, so I recommend eating them right out of the oven for maximum deliciousness.