The name nutellotti comes from contracting Nutella together with biscotti, which means biscuit (cookie) in Italian.  They’re very yummy and usually made from three ingredients:  Nutella, egg and flour!  You know some of my cakes take a little longer to make.  Ahem.  So this is for all you guys who’ve been throwing your arms up in the air and exclaiming, where does she find the time?!  This takes 10 minutes to make and 8-10 minutes to bake.  Yay!  If you have an egg and about three-quarters of a jar of Nutella, this recipe is perfect.  You can make these with fine white spelt, plain or cake flour.  Adding a toasted hazelnut adds crunch and an attractive topping to the little ‘swirl’ of creamy nutella filling.  Fast, easy, deliciously soft nutellotti, the nutella biscuits all the way from Italy!  A delightful treat any time of the day. 🙂

Nutellotti – nutella biscuits

The recipe

My original inspiration, and where I first discovered these biscuits, was Eva’s nutellotti recipe at Electric Blue Food with her beautiful photos and description.  My curiousity was piqued so I then read various other inspiring Italian recipes online which describe these biscuits as semplici, morbidi i deliziosi (simple, soft and delicious).  How could I resist?

Like Eva I was worried about egg size.  Here in Spain our eggs are a bit small so I reduced the quantities of Nutella and flour accordingly.  I loved Eva’s idea of adding a hazelnut on top and some recipes add chopped hazelnuts to the dough for extra crunch.  My first batch was baked for 10 minutes and fine but I felt they could be softer so I baked the second batch 8 minutes.  Better!  Anyway, here’s some advice gathered from various websites and my kitchen experiments:

• don’t overwork the dough after you add the flour – mix lightly as little and as quickly as possible to combine.  This is especially important if using spelt flour, which hates working hard and starts getting tough.
• the biscuit dough should look a little like a stiff cake batter so your nutellotti are lovely and soft.
• if your biscuit dough is sticky don’t add flour but put the mixture in the fridge for a few minutes before rolling.
• make your biscuits all the same size.  Sizes online vary from between 15 to 25g.  I chose 16-17g so they’d be bite-size and all fit on one baking tray.
• be flexible about baking times, it depends on your oven and dough.
• overbaking will make your biscuits/cookies rubbery (gommosi).

This is a very easy recipe and will always be delicious.  I’ve made about 4 or 5 batches in the name of scientific experimentation.  lol.  All delicious but I think white spelt flour adds extra tastiness.  You can’t go very wrong (unless you burn them) but try for a soft biscuit.

Nutellotti – nutella biscuits (cookies)

Ingredients (about 18-20 biscuits)

• Dough
• 170g/half a cup and a scant tablespoon Nutella spread
• 1 medium-sized egg (55-56g)
• 120g/1 cup less half a tablespoon cake flour or fine white spelt flour (or plain/all-purpose flour/00 flour)

• Decoration
• 100 -150g/3.5 – 5oz Nutella spread, to taste
• 18-20 toasted hazelnuts

Whisk the 170g of Nutella and egg together until creamy and combined.  Fold in half the flour.  When almost combined fold and stir in the remaining flour till completely combined but don’t overwork. If your dough’s sticky put in the fridge about 5 minutes.

Between the palm of your hands roll balls weighing about 16-17g (a slightly rounded half-tablespoon) and put on a baking tray lined with baking paper.  Press an indent in each ball with the handle of a wooden spoon or a rounded measuring spoon (half-teaspoon size).

Bake in the middle of the oven 8 minutes.  Test (eat) one to see if it’s to your taste.  Remember they’ll harden a little more out of the oven.  Immediately take off the tray and place on a wire rack to cool.  Decorate with a little Nutella in the indent and a toasted hazelnut on top.

Eating and storing

They’re delicious warm or after they’ve cooled.  They keep up to 4 or 5 days in an airtight container at room temperature.  You usually only need one (or maybe two) for a satisfying hit of yummy Nutella flavour.  So simple and delicious you can understand why nutellotti went viral on Italian social media last year.  Just perfect with a cup of tea or coffee!

Nutellotti – nutella biscuits (a variation sprinkled with a little praline or chopped nuts)

Now you might want to sing an ode to your nutellotti to the tune of O sole mio, also known in the UK as the Cornetto song (watch the 1980s advert on the youtube video here).

One nutelloto, give it to me. Delicious biscuits from Italy!

Cheesy grin.  The singular of nutellotti should be nutellotto but does ‘Have a nutellotto’ sound strange?  Maybe ‘Have some nutellotti?’ has a better ring to it.  Does it matter, you ask yourself?  Let’s just have some.

Go on, have a nutellotti! 🙂

Thanks for dropping by again sweet reader and have a lovely and yummy end of the weekend and week ahead.  Happy baking and eating! 🙂 x