This post may contain affiliate links, please see the privacy policy for details.
Do you love Nutella? I can’t get enough of it and have been known to enjoy it straight from the jar! Nutellotti soft nutella cookies are a great Italian Christmas cookie idea. A tasty chocolate and vanilla flavoured cookie is topped with a sweet and creamy Nutella topping. Nutella thumbprint cookies like these are perfect for the Nutella lover in the family. These Nutella Christmas cookies also are great in a cookie box or for cookie exchanges.
Hazelnut Nutella thumbprint cookies are just as delicious as they sound. If you’re a fan of this classic hazelnut spread, these nutellotti cookies are perfect.
If you’re baking up a storm for Christmas you might also like to make pignoli cookies, chocolate dipped peppermint kisses, or Christmas pinwheel cookies!
Ingredients for Nutellotti Nutella Cookies
You don’t need many ingredients to make an Italian Nutella cookies recipe. As well as the spread itself, you’ll need flour, eggs, salt, vanilla, and some hazelnuts. For the filling you need more Nutella, some heavy cream, powdered sugar and butter.
You might have seen generic chocolate hazelnut products but for these I recommend genuine Nutella. The other ingredients are self-explanatory. Just use regular all-purpose flour for these and either medium or large eggs. You can buy hazelnuts and chop them yourself or else buy them ready-chopped.
How to Prepare Italian Nutella Cookies
After whipping the eggs and Nutella together you can mix in the flour, bit by bit to make dough. Let the dough sit in the refrigerator for about half an hour then divide it into balls and press them down using your thumb. Your thumb is the perfect size for Nutella thumbprint cookies! Else you can use the end of a wooden spoon or handle of a wooden spoon. This might be easier if you have long nails!
Next it is time to bake the easy Nutella thumbprint cookiesand then let them cool completely. Combine the filling ingredients and then you can pipe some into the thumb indent on each cookie. Finally sprinkle chopped nuts on top and enjoy! This is one of the easiest cookie recipe options for the holidays and Christmas cookies with Nutella make a splendid gift.
Who Invented Nutella?
This sweetened hazelnut chocolate spread is known all over the globe. It’s made with whole hazelnuts and is the perfect treat on toast or used to make small cookies. It actually dates back to 1963. This spread was created by an Italian company headed by Pietro Ferrero. He first sold this chocolate spread as a solid block but later it became a spread which is of course easier to use than a solid block.
The main ingredients are palm oil and sugar. This Nutella Christmas recipe also contains cocoa solids, skim milk and hazelnuts, plus whey powder, vanillin, and lecithin. You don’t need to refrigerate it because the sugar acts as a preservative. Refrigerating it makes it too hard to spread too, so it’s better in the cupboard or pantry. With Nutella come all the best Italian Nutella recipes!
Use tufts of Nutella in many original recipes, this chocolate Nutella thumbprint cookies recipe being just one example of its versatility. Add the creamy topping and crunchy chopped hazelnuts on top and these are even better than a Nutellotti recipe from the bakery.
If you’re like me, a jar of Nutella doesn’t last all that long anyway! Especially when there are so many great Nutella recipes to make such as Italian thumbprint cookies with a dollop of Nutella in the centre of each ball.
National Nutella Day falls on February 5 so you can make Nutellotti soft nutella cookies again then or another of many recipes that use Nutella.
How to Store Nutella Italian Cookies
Nutellotti soft nutella cookies will harden overnight and become chewy unless you keep them in an airtight container, preferably in the refrigerator. It’s also possible to freeze these.
If you want to freeze them, let them cool completely and then freeze them on a baking sheet. After that you can transfer them into Ziploc freezer bags. Freezing the Nutella thumbprint cookies on a baking sheet first ensures the filling doesn’t get squashed out of shape.
You can thaw them in the refrigerator and they should taste just as good as when they first came out of the oven. Well, almost!
What Does Nutellotti Mean?
This word simply means ‘soft Nutella cookies’. Italians love this type of cookie with coffee as a snack or even for breakfast.
Variations of Nutella Christmas Cookies
Rather than sprinkle chopped hazelnuts over the finished cookies you can press a whole nut into the filling. You can also swap the Nutella for a generic brand or even use another flavour of cocoa-based spread altogether. You can always use your favourite spread in recipes that use Nutella if you have a different favourite.
A little powdered sugar sprinkled on top is good too and, since these Italian Nutella cookies are a festive treat, it can represent snow! Another variation would be subbing coconut or almond extract for the vanilla, or even hazelnut extract if you don’t mind them VERY hazelnutty!
Nutellotti soft nutella cookies make a cute gift for the Nutella fan in your life. I’d also recommend doubling the recipe if you’re making these for more than a couple of people. They’re small and do disappear quick!
Find these cookies and others in my holiday cookie box
Nutellotti Italian Nutella Cookies Recipe
Nutellotti – Italian Nutella Cookies
Ingredients
INGREDIENTS COOKIES
- 1 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1/2 Cup Nutella
- 2 eggs
- 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 Teaspoon salt
- hazelnuts, chopped for topping
INGREDIENTS FILLING
- 3 Tablespoon Nutella
- 3 Tablespoon unsalted butter
- 3 Tablespoon powdered sugar
- 1.5 Tablespoon heavy cream
Instructions
- Whip together the Nutella and eggs on medium speed for about 3 minutes.
- Slowly add in half of the sifted flour mixing until combined, then add in the second half.
- Once fully mixed, scrape the sides of the bowl and push all of the dough to the center, cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 25 minutes.
- While the dough is chilling you can preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Prepare one or two cookie sheets by lining it with parchment paper.
- Once the dough has chilled for at least 25 minutes you can remove it from the fridge.
- Scoop about 1.5 Tablespoons of the dough into your hand and roll into a ball. Place the ball onto the prepared baking sheet, repeat this step until all of the dough has been rolled into balls. Keep the dough balls a few inches away from each other on the sheet, you may need a second cookie sheet.
- Make a deep indentation into the cookie, to do this you could use your thumb, or the end of a rolling pin, or a kitchen utensil. The indentation should be deep but not all the way through, and not too wide (see pictures).
- Bake the cookies at 350 degrees F for about 12 to 15 minutes. The cookies will be slightly soft but will continue to firm while cooling.
- While the cookies are cooling you can decide which filling to use. You can either fill with plain Nutella or you can make a Nutella buttercream. To make the buttercream, add all of the filling ingredients to a bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Add your choice of filling (Nutella or Nutella Buttercream) to a pastry bag fitted with a star shaped piping tip.
- Once the cookies are completely cooled, pipe the filling into the indentation, swirling as you go up. Sprinkle the top with chopped hazelnuts.
Notes
Nutrition
Whether you make these Nutellotti soft Nutella cookies Italian style as they are or try one of the above variations, you’ll love them. Nutella Christmas cookies are easy and fun to make and they’re wonderful served with a frothy cappuccino. They’re quite rich though – you’ll find one or two goes a long way! Go ahead and add this to your list of favorite Christmas Nutella recipes.
Other Recipes to Try
Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a Canadian-based syndicated food, travel, and lifestyle writer, photographer, and creator at xoxoBella. She founded xoxoBella in 2015, where she shares her love for food, dogs, sustainability, fitness, crafts, outdoor adventures, travel, and philanthropy to encourage others to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places, and stand for a cause. Bella creates stress-free and family-friendly recipes for weeknight dinners and festive feasts.
This recipe is such a wonderful treat. I loved every bite of it!
how to make Nutella butter cream? Thank you.
You can either use straight Nutella for the filling or make Nutella buttercream. The ingredients and instructions for the buttercream are in the recipe.
Nutella doesn’t keep for very long in this house but next time I’ll buy a big pot of it and make these!
oh my! I need to make these!