These crisp chocolate hazelnut sandwich cookies are a decadent treat worthy of any special occasion. We grind an entire cup of tonda gentile hazelnuts into the naturally sweet Maiorca flour. This creates a deeply flavored cookie base worthy of Marco Colzani’s Gianduja spread. The hazelnuts he uses in the spread are the same ones we sell! If you’re up for it, you can replace the hazelnuts with pistachios. Then of course you’d use Marco’s Pistachio spread for the filling. We’ve tried it before and assure you it’s delicious.
You can make the dough up to two days before you plan to cut, bake, and assemble the cookies. You’ll need two sizes of cookie cutter, a larger one to create the base and lid of the sandwich, and a smaller one to create the “window” for each lid. We used 2.5 in / 6 cm and 1.5 in /3.8 cm.
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen.
Ingredients
YIELD: About 25 sandwich cookies
TIME: 2-3 hours, plus 1 hour chilling time
- Toasted Tonda Gentile Hazelnuts, 140g / 1 cup
- Maiorca flour, 280g / 2 cups
- Baking powder, 3/4 tsp
- Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp
- Unsalted butter, softened, 225g / 1 cup
- Light or dark brown sugar, 145g / 3/4 cup
- Granulated sugar, 100g / 1/2 cup
- Vanilla, 1 tsp
- Egg yolks, 2 large
- Powdered sugar, 50g / 1/2 cup
- Chocolate Hazelnut Gianduja spread, 1/2 cup
Preparation
- Put the hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, and salt in a food processor and grind until the nuts are as fine as possible, before they turn to a paste.
- Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla, then gradually add the dry ingredients until just combined.
- Divide the dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
- Preheat the oven to 175°C / 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats. Working with small amounts of dough, roll out to 1/8 in / 3mm thick. Place the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap or parchment paper sprinkled with flour to help rolling it out more evenly.
- Use the larger cookie cutter to cut out the bases and lids for each sandwich, and the smaller one to create a “window” in each lid. The cookies will best keep their shape if the dough is cold, so place your trays of uncooked cookies in the freezer for 5 minutes or so before putting them in the oven.
- Bake for 8-9 minutes, rotating the trays as needed, until golden at the edges. Let the cookies rest 5 minutes on the baking trays before transferring to a wire cooling rack.
- Dust the cookie lids with powdered sugar. To assemble the cookies, put a thin layer of chocolate hazelnut spread on the base of each cookie, before topping with the sugared lid. You want to make the spread as thin as possible. The cookies will keep for up to four days in a tightly sealed container.
