Hazelnut Nutella Thumbprint Cookies

I am guilty of lying low in the blogword these days, not posting anything, not visiting any of the fellow bloggers blogs that frequently.Mumbai  monsoon continues. It has been raining everyday, leaving a sense of melancholy on weekdays and to add to that office hours have been hectic, leaving me uninspired to cook anything special. The only good thing is when we go out on weekends, to explore the beauty that monsoon brings.

Here are some of the photos  from our recent trip to Matheran, a beautiful hill station near mumbai, where no vehicles are allowed. There are no concrete or tar roads. You have to go from a place either on foot or horses. The photos are taken by my husband, who is an amateur photographer.  

Matheran Photos

Photos of Mumbai's Marine Drive in Monsoon 

Enjoy the photos of greenery and rains :))

My sister was here for a couple of days. She had made of list of few things for me to bake. Unfortunately, due to lack of time I  couldn't  make anything. To make up for that I baked some of these thumbprint cookies that she could take home.  The baking time that the original recipe had did not work for me , maybe because I use a microwave convection oven. It was too crumbly and was breaking even if I tried to lift them. I increased the baking time considerably to get a harder texture. The cookies came out delicious and exactly of the same texture I wanted.  

The recipe is from BakersDaughter .OMG, You can imagine how much office work is on my mind. I was going to write ," Please find the recipe attached" . :-D

Ingredients

 [25-30 cookies]
12 tbsp butter, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup Nutella

1 cup hazelnuts toasted

Preparation

1. Preheat your oven to 350F/180C.  Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.  
2. Finely chop the hazelnuts.  Set aside. 
3. Using a hand or stand mixer, combine the butter and sugar.  Beat for a few minutes until smooth. 
4. Add the flour,vanilla extract and mix until combined.   
5. Form the dough into tablespoon sized balls.  Roll each ball into the chopped nuts and place on the baking trays 1 inch apart.
6. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from the oven and press a round teaspoon into the center into each cookie to make an indentation. If you can bear a bit of heat, you can use your thumb ,like I did :)
7.  Using a pastry bag,fill in nutella in the indentation. The original recipe had this step once the cookies were completely baked. But , I wanted to harden Nutella a bit  as I was packing them, so I did this step before.The first photo above is after this step.
8. Place back the cookies in the oven for another 20-25 minutes  till they are slightly brown [ The original recipe had 7-10 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are lightly browned.  ]
9. Place the cookies on a wire rack to cool.