Mia's Recipe: Vanilla Sugar Cookies & (Failed) Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

In slightly more than 12 hours, I will be off to China for my 1 week break with my family! So before my 1 week hiatus, let's try out some baking!

Together with Sa, we tried our hands at 2 recipes in a day, one adapted from Laura Vitale and another from Yoyomax12. They're both really amazing bakers so if you haven't checked them out on youtube, please do. 

First up, let's get on with Laura's Vanilla Sugar Cookies. 

We'll need:

224g of AP Flour

1/2 tsp of Baking Powder

1/2 tsp of Salt

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

227g of Unsalted Butter

(about) 170g Sugar + sufficient for coating

1 Egg

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

First up, cream the butter, soften at room temperature, with the sugar and mix in the egg until well incorporated. 

Mix in the vanilla extract before sifting in all the dry ingredients to get a pretty soft and gooey batter. 

Next, using a cookie-scoop or just a tablespoon, scoop the batter uniformly into a bowl of sugar and coat them well before putting them on a baking sheet, at least 1 to 2 inches apart for they spread quite a lot, to bake at 175 degree Celsius for about 15 to 18 minutes if you're making large (subway sized) cookies. 

Our batches of large sized cookies rolled in caster sugar before baking. 

Just an additional tip, Laura's recipe actually called for 200g of sugar, but since we wanted it less sweet, we only added in 170g of sugar and did 2 batches, one not rolled in sugar and one rolled in sugar. For someone with just an average liking for sweetness, I will recommend you skipping the sugar coating as well, if not the cookies will turn out to be very, very sweet. 

Also, do make the cookies much smaller in size as the cookies are of a more crumbly texture and the bigger they are the easier they crumble to pieces as you pick them up. 

Our batches of bite sized cookies that were not rolled in sugar before baking. Just showing you a gauge of how much the batter will spread in the oven. :)

Next up, it was Yoyomax12's recipe for Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies! Prior to the baking day, I've already spooned out teaspoonfuls of nutella on a sheet of baking paper and kept them in the freezer to 'stuff' them into the batter for baking. But it ended up as a big flop. Why so? Read on to find out. For now, let's get on with the ingredients so we can get started. 

We'll need:

295g of AP Flour

70g of Cocoa Powder (unsweeten)

1/2 tsp of Baking Powder

1/2 tsp of Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

250g of Unsalted Butter

155g of Caster Sugar

160g of Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2 tsp of Vanilla Extract

396g of Chocolate Chips (Semi Sweet)

(about) 30 spoonfuls of frozen nutella 

As usual, cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy before beating in the eggs and vanilla extract till incorporated. 

Then, sift in all the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Lastly stir in the chocolate chips before leaving the batter in the fridge for at least 2 hours to stiffen up. 

And after 2 hours we're supposed to shape the stiffen dough into dough balls with the frozen nutella as the filling. But here came the issue. 

The dough was too too hard to shape and the nutella starts to melt IMMEDIATELY when taken out from the freezer in our hot climate. 

So unless you are quick at shaping the dough balls plus you don't mind doing it by taking out the nutella globs from your freezer ONE BY ONE (recipe makes about 30 cookies), go ahead. 

If not, skip this stuffing to save you a lot of hassle. 

If you're baking them in large sizes, spread them 1 to 2 inches apart as they also do spread a great deal, and bake them at 175 to 180 degree Celsius for 9 to 12 minutes, or until the top starts to crack. I know it's hard to gauge when the such double chocolate cookies are done as it is impossible to see them browning in the oven. 

As I like my chocolate cookie drier and crumblier, I tend to go lower with my temperature (I set mine at 160 to 170 degree Celsius) and bake them for longer time (I baked my bite sized cookies for about 10 minutes) to make them 'crunchier'. It might also get a little burnt, giving them the bitter chocolate taste. 

Ha Ha Ha! Yes, I know I'm weird. 

Looks good, no?

And here's sharing how the actual stuffed cookie will look like. We gave up on it after seeing how it will turn out as:

1. The nutella stuffing will not be runny at all

2. You really cannot taste the difference of having nutella as the surprise centre

My share of the cookies. 

Sa's share of the cookies. Yes, she took most of the plain uncoated vanilla sugar cookies as she felt that it was horribly sweet. 

So, have you tried similar recipe before? Especially some nutella stuffed cookies, and succeeded? Do share with me your tips in the comment box below! 

Have you joined MollyMia's first beauty giveaway yet? Giveaway is closing this month so do hurry and check it out HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo