One miracle of the holiday season is its uniqueness from person to person. Every person has their own experiences and own perception of what defines the holidays. Childhood experiences at my grandparents’ house frame what I associate with the Christmas season. The cocktail of hot roasted coffee and fresh buttery baked goods in the morning. The piercing sensation of calm cold air attacking your skin after leaving the warm heavenly cocoon of a comforter. The amazing meals that took half a day to prepare that are gone in an instant. Many of the sensations I listed above are pretty common across many households, so for this #Cookielicious party, I wanted to find inspiration in a memory that was special to me. That’s when I settled upon chocolate hazelnut truffles.

My grandparents would always splurge a bit in the holiday season and get the treats that people loved to snack on. Every holiday I’m used to seeing a couple different treats; soda cans in the fridge, chocolate macadamia candies from our Hawaiian relative, and the chocolate hazelnut truffles wrapped in gold that my mom loves so much. We always had this seasonal tradition of spending most of the day playing card games as a family, and my mom would always grab those truffles regardless of the situation in the game. If she was winning they’d be a prize to celebrate, while if she was losing it would be some mystical medicine she’d use for “brain power.”
The chocolate hazelnut truffle cookies I’m bringing to the party are inspired by my mom during the holidays. Rather than using a brown sugar and egg based cookie, I wanted to use a condensed milk recipe to emulate the rich texture of a truffle candy. I add roasted hazelnuts on in the inside to bring that fresh hazelnut taste, and the outside of the cookie is rolled in nuts to provide the texture that I associate with those kinds of truffles. Add in a couple of chocolate chips for sweetness, and you’ve got a cookie reminiscent of truffle candy.

Ingredients

15 oz shelled hazelnuts
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 tbsp tapioca flour
2 tbsp potato starch
1/2 tsp guar gum
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 stick room temperature butter
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 275F.
Deshell the hazelnuts, and roast in the oven for 15 minutes.
Remove the nuts from the oven and let them become room temperature. Finely chop the hazelnuts, and set aside 1/3 of the nuts.
Preheat the oven to 325F.
Mix the flours, starch, salt, gum, and cocoa together, then set aside.
Whip the butter until light and fluffy. Whip the milk into the butter until combined.
Whip the cocoa flour into the cream until a batter forms.
Fold in 2/3 of the nuts and the 1/4 cup chips into the batter.
Roll the dough into 12 balls, and roll the tops into the chopped nuts. Lightly press the cookies onto the baking sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes, and let them cool to room temperature before storing in an air tight container.