Milk chocolate & hazelnut cookies, who doesn’t love them? Certainly not me, they are one of my favourite biscuits. However, I do prefer to make my own as I find shop bought just a bit too hard and really not what I want from a cookie.
Also store bought cookies rarely contain enough hazelnuts for me. I like my cookies loaded in hazelnuts, there should be just as much hazelnut as there are chocolate chips.
These homemade chocolate cookies are a great quick and straightforward bake. There’s little effort involved in pulling together a cookie batter and after a quick bake in the oven you have a far superior biscuit to anything you can buy shop bought.
These homemade chocolate cookies are great for a child’s first solo bake. Cookies are forgiving, there’s no uniform shape, they are not meant to be dainty.
Why you’ll love this recipe:
- Quick to prepare and bake, these cookies can be cooked and out of the oven ready to eat in less than 30 minutes.
- The ideal bake with children as this is a simple bake that most kids can handle on their own with just a little help from adults to get them in and out of the oven.
- This recipe easily makes 25-30 cookies so bake some cookies to enjoy now and freeze some to enjoy another day.
Chocolate Hazelnuts Cookies recipe steps:
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170CFan.
- Place the butter and both sugars into a bowl and beat well until you get a creamy mixture.
- Meanwhile place the hazelnuts in a sealed plastic bag and bash up gently with a rolling pin to create small chunks of nut.
- Once you have beaten the butter and sugars together, beat in the vanilla extract and the egg, mixing well to combine.
- Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt to the bowl and continue to mix well until you have a rough dough.
- Add the milk chocolate chips and hazelnuts to the dough and mix until you have a well combined dough.
- Pull together small golf ball sized balls of the cookie dough and place these on a tray lined with baking parchment. Space the cookies well apart as they will spread in the oven. However do not flatten out the balls of dough.
- Once you have shaped all the cookies, you should get 25-30 cookies from this mix, place the trays into the hot oven. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, they should be a little soft in the middle.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, place them on a wire cooling rack and allow to cool. Once cool store in an airtight container.
Recipe ingredients & substitutions:
- Sugar: I use a combination of granulated and light muscovado sugar as it has a great molasses flavour that really works in these chocolate cookies. A good substitution would be soft light brown sugar or a golden caster sugar.
- Butter: I use unsalted butter, but you could also use salted butter. Don’t be tempted to use margarine as you won’t get the same flavour or set in the cookies.
- Vanilla Extract: adds great flavour to these chocolate cookies, you could also use vanilla paste. Vanilla essence would also work but it won’t have the same depth of flavor.
- Eggs: use 1 large beaten eggs in this recipe as it helps to bind the cookie dough.
- Flour: plain flour (all purpose) is used in this recipe.
- Bicarbonate of Soda: is added to give the cookies a little rise and create a light, soft cookie.
- Chocolate Chips: I use milk chocolate chips to make milk chocolate and hazelnut cookies, but you can use dark chocolate, white chocolate, chocolate orange chips – whichever you prefer.
- Hazelnuts: add great crunch to these chocolate cookies. You can swap the hazelnuts for any other nut, or leave them out entirely if you prefer.
Flavour variations?
This recipe is simple, a basic cookie dough to which I’ve added the flavours of chocolate, hazelnut and vanilla. That’s what I like about a basic recipe, you can play around with it and add the flavours that you enjoy and like to eat.
- Chocolate Chips – use whatever flavour you enjoy: milk; dark; white; chocolate orange. Or mix up your flavours, so long as you end up with 140g of chocolate chips.
- Nuts – I love adding nuts to cookies for added crunch. Try chopped almonds; pecans; brazil or macadamia nuts.
- Dried Fruits – raisin; sultanas; currants; cranberry; blueberry; all work with a basic cookie.
- Citrus Burst – ramp up the fruity flavour by adding some citrus zest. When it comes to flavouring lemon; lime; or orange zest can transform a simple cookie.
How to store milk chocolate & hazelnut cookies?
If you keep these cookies in an airtight container, they will remain fresh for up to a week. Not that they ever last that long in my house!
However, do not be tempted to refrigerate these cookies as they will go soft and stale in the fridge.
Can you freeze chocolate & hazelnut cookies?
Yes you can store these homemade chocolate cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 months in the freezer. When ready to enjoy just defrost at room temperature.
Can you freeze cookie dough?
Rather than freeze the cookie itself, what I like to do is freeze the dough. Sometimes I make a double batch of chocolate and hazelnut cookie dough then split it into 3 portions. I bake 1 portion and freeze the other 2 for baking fresh at a later date.
Roll the dough into a log shape, wrap in clingfilm and place in a container suitable for the freezer. This means you have fresh cookie dough, ready to bake any time you fancy a sweet treat. Simply remove from the freezer, defrost and roll into rough balls, as shown above, and bake!
Recipe hints & tips:
- Line the baking tray with a silicone baking sheet or baking parchment as this will stop the cookies stick to the tray.
- For anyone with a nut allergy, simply leave out the hazelnuts and increase the chocolate chips to 200g.
- Allergy advice: for comprehensive and detailed allergy advice go to Allergy UK.
Pin the recipe for later:
Alternative recipe suggestions:
If you like this recipe then why not try some of our other simple biscuit recipes:
- Orange Butter Biscuits
- Lemon Butter Biscuits
- Custard Creams
- Ginger & Chilli Biscuits
- Spiced Christmas Cookies
- No-bake Mars Bar Slice
- No-bake Chocolate Tiffin
- Dark Chocolate & Ginger Tiffin
These cookies are also delicious served with our Mulled Apple Juice.
If you enjoyed this bake have a look at our Ultimate Guide to Baking with Kids, full of great recipe suggestions for baking with children.
Chocolate & Hazelnut Cookies
Ingredients
- 80 g granulated sugar
- 80 g light brown muscovado sugar
- 150 g unsalted butter (softened)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 225 g plain flour
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 140 g milk chocolate chips
- 140 g hazelnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170CFan.
- Place the butter and both sugars into a bowl and beat well until you get a creamy mixture.
- Meanwhile place the hazelnuts in a sealed plastic bag and bash up gently with a rolling pin to create small chunks of nut.
- Once you have beaten the butter and sugars together, beat in the vanilla extract and the egg, mixing well to combine.
- Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt to the bowl and continue to mix well until you have a rough dough.
- Add the milk chocolate chips and hazelnuts to the dough and mix until you have a well combined dough.
- Pull together small golf ball sized balls of the cookie dough and place these on a tray lined with baking parchment. Space the cookies well apart as they will spread in the oven. However do not flatten out the balls of dough.
- Once you have shaped all the cookies, you should get 25-30 cookies from this mix, place the trays into the hot oven. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, they should be a little soft in the middle.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, place them on a wire cooling rack and allow to cool. Once cool store in an airtight container.
Notes
• Please note that the nutrition information provided above is approximate and meant as a guideline only •
Louise
Currently isolating & needed to bake! What a fab easy recipe – absolutely delicious Baked for a few minutes longer as that is my preference but will definitely make again – have frozen half the batch in balls to see how they bake from frozen
Like the idea of almost instant home made cookies!!!
Lesley
Thank you Louise, I hope that you are back up and out again soon! Yes, these are one of my favourite bakes, so simple and easily adapted, use the dough as a base and you can add in pretty much any flavouring that you like. I always like to have some frozen dough ready to bake up when the fancy takes me.
Lucilia
This is the best cookie recipe I’ve found all my family loved it
It’s now my go to for all my cookies just changing the chocolate an hazelnut for other things but the chocolate and hazelnut are delicious Thankyou for sharing
Lesley
Thank you very much Lucy, I’m delighted that you like this recipe. It’s our favourite too and like you we change up the ingredients from time to time, depending on what’s in my cupboards.
Almaz
Very easy and straightforward recipe, and they tasted lovely.
However I wanted to know what you would suggest to make them a bit less cakey and more “doey” on a the inside just to suit my personal preference. Should I adjust the cooking time or tweak some ingredients?
Lesley
Thank you Almaz, they are such a simple cookie to bake. Ok a couple of suggestions that you might want to try. Firstly you could try swapping the muscovado sugar for some white sugar as white sugar tends to make a crunchier cookie. However, doing this you would loose some of the depth of flavour. You could also try making the cookies a little smaller and try cooking them for a little longer, however, take care not to burn them.
Rosario Plummer
Amazing and delicious
Lesley
Thank you Rosario.
Jackie Thompson
These look gorgeous sending hubby out for hazelnuts today on the excuse he loves nuts. Can’t wait to try them . Thanks for sharing
Lesley
You’re welcome Jackie. They’re such a simple bake but very moreish. I hope you enjoy them. Lesley
Janice
I love the look of these cookies, hazelnuts have such a great taste and go really well with chocolate.
Lesley
Thank you Janice, these are my daughters favourite cookies (mine too) and easy enough that they can bake them themselves. Lesley x
Fiona
The girls made these at the weekend – half with hazelnuts and half without as one doesn’t like nuts. They were delicious!
Michelle
So pleased you and the girls enjoyed them Fiona, its one of the bakes we make a lot with our girls too. Cheers, Michelle x