Chocolate-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies

Do you live near a Whole Foods Market or another major health food store? I don't. Our nearest Whole Foods Market is about a 30 minute drive from us, which isn't that far but we don't always have time to go there. There is a little health food store about 15 minutes from here, but everything there is obscenely overpriced and we just aren't made of money. Enter Vitacost!

This is not a sponsored post. This is just me telling you about an online store where you can get your specialty vegan groceries even if you don't have a health food store in your town either. Look at it all! Vegan Worcestershire sauce, two kinds of vegan tuna, Earth Balance mac & cheese, date syrup, guar gum, and look at that massive BUCKET of nutritional yeast! Score! I always try to get at least $49 worth of products because that is Vitacost's free-shipping threshold, and I do love my free shipping deals. That applies to US shipping, although their international shipping fees don't seem unreasonable. Their prices are generally lower than those at out local grocery store, which does sell some vegan items. They also seem to have coupons and deals going on often and they accept Paypal. Yep, I am smitten. It just ticks all the boxes for me. Do you shop there?

My favorite product from Vitacost to date? Endangered Species chocolate-hazelnut spread.

It's sweet, chocolaty, and hazelnutty, and super smooth and creamy. It isn't particularly cheap so it's not something I buy too often, but it's nice to treat myself to a little jar every now and then, and because it's so sweet a little jar goes a long way. The ingredients are: Cane sugar, vegetable oil (rapeseed, palm), hazelnuts, cocoa, maltodextrin, sunflower lecithin, vanilla extract.

I used it to make these tiny Chocolate-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies inspired by Ferrero Rocher chocolates. They are simple chocolate cookies dipped in melted chocolate, then rolled in chopped hazelnuts, then filled with chocolate-hazelnut spread, and topped with whole hazelnuts.

Small Batch Chocolate-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies Recipe Type: Cookies, Dessert Cuisine: Vegan Author: Wing It Vegan Cook time: 30 mins Total time: 30 mins Serves: 12 mini cookies Ingredients: 1/4 cup powdered sugar 1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted coconut oil 1 - 2 tbsp vegan milk 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour 1 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder 1/8 tsp salt 1/4 to 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips 1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts your favorite chocolate-hazelnut spread 12 whole hazelnuts What to do: Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a small mixing bowl combine the sugar, oil, and one tablespoon of milk. Whisk well until smooth and creamy. In a medium sized mixing bowl sift in the flour and cocoa powder. Add the salt and mix well. Pour the oil and sugar mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until a firm dough forms. The dough should be quite firm, but not crumbly and falling apart. Add only as much milk as you need to keep the dough from falling apart. Scoop the dough onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet. I use a mini cookie scoop that holds two teaspoons of dough, which makes 12 little cookies. To make the little "thumbprints" press the back of a rounded measuring spoon down in the center of each cookie. Make nice big wells so you will be able to fill your cookies with lots of chocolate-hazelnut spread. If the cookies split when you're pressing down with the spoon, it means that your dough it a little too dry and you should add a tiny bit of milk. The cookies should crack a bit here and there, but if they actually split into different pieces it means they need tiny bit more liquid. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Sorry! While the cookies chill in the fridge, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C.) When the oven is preheated and the cookies have chilled for about 30 minutes, bake them for nine minutes on the top third rack of your oven (unless your oven doesn't burn from the bottom, mine does so I need to bake cookies on the top third.) You may need to bake them for an extra minute, but no more than ten because they will dry up. These bake really fast! Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let them cool down to room temperature. Now it's time to dip the cookies in chocolate chips, so melt your chocolate chips in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring well in between cycles, until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth. I like to to this in a shallow (microwaveable) bowl because it's easy to dip the cookies in a shallow bowl. Dip the bottom of each cookie in the melted chocolate, then dip or roll each cookie in the chopped hazelnuts, whatever works for you. Fill each well in the center of the cookies with chocolate-hazelnut spread. It's OK to overfill them a little. Place a whole hazelnut on top of each cookie and enjoy!

Mr. Wing-It, who isn't a big chocoholic, ate several of these and said *nom nom nom.* That's a good sign! But then again, I have never met anyone who didn't like the chocolate+hazelnut combo. Alrighty then. Now it's time to wrap this up with something cute. Bunny, anyone? *nom nom nom*