Fudgy Chocolate Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies

These rich and fudgy chocolate hazelnut thumbprint cookies are so easy to make and are finished with a chocolate puddle in the middle. The cookie dough is super easy to make and they’re packed full of crisp hazelnuts which give them loads of nutty flavor.

Hey team, Nick here! We’re making a really easy chocolate cookie recipe today. It’s the kind of cookie that deceives you into thinking it requires skill, but literally anyone can make these. Even kids!

I love how dramatic these cookies look too. The toasted hazelnuts on the outside and that chocolate filling make them look striking.

When you bite into them you get hit with so much texture. The crispness from the hazelnuts, the fudgy cookie texture and that smooth chocolate filling.

You can get creative with the filling you use. My one-bowl chocolate sauce is a great alternative if you want to make these nut free. You could coat them in some sugar or bake them without a coating. 

Related – If you’re big on chocolate cookies, I have to recommend my chocolate amaretti cookies which are fudgy and almondy too. I’ve got easy Nutella stuffed cookies and then there’s my completely absurdly over the top chocolate chip overload cookies. 

How to toast your hazelnuts

You’re going to want to toast your hazelnuts for these cookies because it makes them nice and crisp and also releases so much flavor too.

• It’s super simple. Pop them on a baking tray and bake them on 180C / 355F (fan off) for 10 minutes or until they’re golden. 
• Let them cool completely and then chop them up.

Tip – I used a mini food blender to do this. You only need about 5-8 seconds on high. You don’t want them to be in powdered form. Some big chunks are ok.

This is one of the easiest cookie doughs to make

• Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder into a bowl and mix.
• To a separate bowl add the softened butter (a little softer than you usually use) and both sugars and beat on high speed for about 3 minutes until it looks creamy and pale. It will give you light cookies. Then add the egg and vanilla and beat until well combined.

Why two sugars? The brown sugar gives the cookies a chewy interior and the white sugar crisp edges!

• Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and use a spatula to mix until it forms a dough.
• I used a 1 tbsp ice cream scoop to scoop out about 13 cookies. They each weigh about 30-33g each if you want to just measure them out.

• Roll them up in the crushed hazelnuts.
• Then use your hands to roll them into balls.

• Pop them onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and use a rounded measuring spoon to indent them. I used a 1tsp measuring spoon. Alternatively you can use your thumb, hence the name!

Don’t skip the chill time!

Chill time is super important for these cookies. They only need 1 hour in the fridge and it helps firm them up so that when they hit the oven, they don’t turn into a flat mess. Plus the baking powder and creaming the sugar and butter should help give them some lift too. All these combined help you get a nice almost ufo shaped cookie.

In my testing – I tried baking these without chilling. Disaster. A flat disaster. It’s just not worth skipping the 60 minute chill time.

Baking and filling your cookies

• Place 6 chilled cookies on a baking tray lined with baking paper. You want to give them room to spread a little. They only need 9 minutes in the oven!
• To get nice round cookies – use a round cookie cutter, a little bigger than the cookie and gently shuffle it around each cookie while its still warm. I do it as soon as they’ve come out of the oven.

Tip 1 – Let them cool on the baking tray so the bottoms stay crispy.

Tip 2 – You don’t want to bake them all at once on a single baking tray because you want lots of time to get to each cookie when you indent them for a second time and shape them with the cookie cutter

The best fillings to use

• Listen, you can use Nutella, but there are so many better alternatives out there. Coles makes a low sugar hazelnut spread with no palm oil, but my favorite one to use is the Pana brand one. No palm oil and its so much more luxurious than Nutella. In my opinion.

Whatever you use, warm it up a little before filling your cooled cookies. You can use two spoons or a piping bag.

I love gifting these cookies – Because they keep for about a week in a container. And frankly, who doesn’t love a free chocolate cookie? Only weirdos.