Hazelnut Caramel Cookies

Preheat the oven to 150 °C fan. Spread 140 g hazelnuts on a perforated baking tray lined with a Silicone mat, and toast them in the oven for 15 minutes. This gives the nuts a much more intense flavour.

Take the hazelnuts out of the oven after 15 minutes and let them cool.

Put 225 g soft butter, 300 g brown sugar and 100 g hazelnut praline into the Mixing bowl.

American cookies are always baked with brown sugar, and you can taste it! Coarse brown sugar works best. We tested the praline from FunCakes: it tastes really good, goes perfectly with these cookies and is much quicker than a homemade praline.

Mix the three ingredients with the flat beater (K-beater) of the stand mixer. Once the mixture is creamy, add the 2 eggs and continue mixing for a few more seconds.

Finally, add 550 g flour, 2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp salt.

Stir everything once more until the dough is nice and even and no longer sticks to the edge of the bowl.

Chop 200 g Dulcey chocolate coarsely, but not too finely: simply cut each piece into 2 or 3 parts. This chocolate is unique, it tastes of caramel and gives the cookies their special flavour.

Also cut the roasted hazelnuts in half. Then set aside one third of the chocolate and one third of the hazelnuts as decoration.

Add the remaining chocolate and hazelnuts to the cookie dough and mix everything for a few seconds with the flat beater.

Depending on the strength of your stand mixer, you can also do this part by hand. This way the nuts and chocolate are distributed evenly through the dough.

Preheat the oven to 160 °C convection and line a perforated baking sheet with a Silicone mat.

Shape balls of no more than 45 to 50 g. The easiest way is to weigh the first portion, then you get a feel for the size.

Take about 45 g of dough in your hand, shape it into a ball and place it on the sheet. Press a few of the reserved hazelnuts and Dulcey pieces on top and gently press the cookie down as you do.

Place no more than 6 to 8 cookies on one sheet and leave plenty of space: they spread further while baking and must not stick together.

Bake the cookies for 14 minutes at 160 °C convection. Afterwards they are nicely crisp on the outside and still soft on the inside.

Leave them on the sheet briefly after baking, then carefully transfer them to a cake rack to cool. Do not handle them too firmly while still warm, or they will break. Bake sheet by sheet until all the dough is used up.