World Nutella Day 2012

Happy World Nutella Day! As I've stated before, this is one of my favorite food holidays. This event is hosted by Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso. This is now my fourth year participating, and I love thinking of what new nutella treat to concoct for the event.



This year, I made nutella pillow cookies. For a while now, I've been searching for a recipe that recreates the scrumptious pillow cookies from The Fresh Market. None of the recipes I found seemed to work.



So I took matters into my own hands. I used a recipe for soft sugar cookies, and made a nutella filling for the centers. They came out even better than I hoped. The only thing I would change was to use a little more filling in each cookie. The more nutella, the better!




Nutella Pillow Cookies

adapted from Hostess With The Mostess

2 sticks butter, softened
½ c sugar
½ c light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbs vanilla
½ tsp almond extract
3 c flour
1 Tbs baking powder
½ tsp salt

Nutella filling:
⅔ c nutella
1 ½ tsp flour

Powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 375˚F. Combine butter and both sugars in a large bowl. Beat until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and beat after each addition. Add vanilla and almond extract and beat another minute. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients slowly, and mix well. Form dough into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least an hour.

In a small bowl, stir nutella and flour together. Roll cookie dough on a very lightly floured surface and cut into 2-inch squares. Place half the cookie dough squares onto a parchemt-lined baking sheet. Spoon (or pipe) about 2 tsp of nutella mixture into the center the squares. Top cookies with the remaining cookie dough squares and pinch edges to seal. Bake for 9-10 minutes, until the edges just start to turn golden. Do not over bake. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a rack to cool. Once cooled, dust the tops of the cookies with powdered sugar.

Makes 20-24 pillow cookies.