Today's cookie of the day: Shortbread Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies! These are you perfect afternoon snack or go with your cup of coffee or tea cookie. Simple and sweet!
The shortbread cookies are straight to the point. Buttery in flavor and the perfect compliment to the sweetness and richness of the hazelnut spread. If you ask me, shortbread and hazelnut go hand in hand. The shortbread dough is easy to assemble and requires about an hour of chill time in the refrigerator. This is important. Do not skip the chill time. Chilling the short bread dough allows the dough to set, the butter to solidify and will result in a beautifully baked shortbread cookie.
Ingredients
- 2 sticks unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 tbsp light brown sugar
- 2 tbsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- ½ tsp almond extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- Nutella or any brand hazelnut spread
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl combine butter, sugar and brown sugar and beat on medium speed using a handheld mixer for about 2 to 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla and almond extract and mix for another 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in the flour, mixing on low speed until thoroughly combined. Place the dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and work it with your hands to shape the dough into a circle. Make sure the dough is covered with plastic wrap and chill in the refirgerator for at least 2 hour or up to over night. Do not skip this step, dough need to firm up and set before it can be cut into cookies.
- Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove from the refrigerator and lay it out on a slightly floured work surface. Lightly flour a rolling pin and roll out dough so it's about ¼ inch thick. Use a small biscuit cutter or circle cookie cutter (mine was 1.5 inch in diameter) to punch out small, round pieces of cookie dough. Lay the cookies on a baking sheet with parchment paper with about 1 inch space in between each cookie. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, the bottoms of the cookies should be slightly golden brown but the tops still pale. Allow cookies to cool for about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Once cookies have cooled, flip half the cookies upside down and spread hazelnut spread on the bottoms on the cookies, top each cookie with another cookies to create a "sandwich" and serve.
Notes
*Dough makes roughly 60 individual cookies which will give you 30 sandwich cookies.
*I used a small biscuit cutter that is 1.5 inch in diameter which is pretty small, you can use a bigger cookie cutter or biscuit cutter but this will result in less cookies and the size will be bigger. Baking time may also be different