Gooey homemade Nutella filling joins crumbly hazelnut cookies in these “Nutella” hazelnut chocolate sandwich cookies. Because two cookies are always better than one, and who in their right mind would ever say no to homemade Nutella?

As a scientist (in the making?), I like equations and nice, neat logical arguments. So here’s today’s favourite: if one cookie is great, two cookies are better, and if you put a filling in the middle, you have a winner. Another logical argument: everyone loves Nutella (fact), and everyone loves cookies (fact) – therefore it follows that everyone will love (to the power of about a thousand) these “Nutella” hazelnut chocolate sandwich cookies. Fact. Case closed. (And these are gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free sandwich cookies, how amazing is that?!)

There’s nothing uninteresting, or boring, or average about these sandwich cookies. They are everything sweet and crumbly and oh, there’s the gooey filling, and it’s chocolate and hazelnuts and we’re all simply over the moon with how delicious they are. Furthermore, just imagine how awesome people will think you are when you just oh-by-the-way mention that ‘Well, I’ve obviously also made the Nutella filling, as in, it’s homemade Nutella, no biggie, really.’ with the ‘I’m simply fabulous like that’ going unspoken but so so so glaringly obvious.

Because, yes, you’ll be making the Nutella filling. So scratch that “homemade Nutella” off your To-Do-(It-Will-Probably-Never-Happen-But-It’s-Nice-To-Imagine) List. Because we’re totally doing this, and it’ll be a piece of cake (pardon me, a piece of sandwich cookie… or ten of them – no judgement). But first, the cookies.

The top secret trick that elevates these sandwich cookies from mmm-they’re-really-good to oh-my-god-I’m-having-an-out-of-body-experience-they’re-so-so-so-I-don’t-even-have-the-words (that I’ll tell you all about) is… roasting the hazelnuts. I don’t care how you do it – in a pan on the hob, in a baking tray in the oven – just roast the hazelnuts. I’m being 100% serious, it really does make that much of a difference. One does not make light of such existentially crucial matters!

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We won’t be using butter or sugar today, nope, none of that. We’re going the dairy and refined sugar free way today. Therefore, soften that coconut oil (but don’t melt it – you can’t “cream” a liquid), add that honey and cream them together. Resist picking up the spoon and “just having a taste”. Yes, it is finger-lickingly delicious, but these sandwich cookies are worth the willpower exercise. Trust me. (Think of it as character building.)

An egg and an egg yolk (for extra decadence) are added, while gluten free flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt are sifted together, mixed with some ground roasted (!) hazelnuts and then everything is mixed mixed mixed together. A benefit of gluten-free baking? None of that pesky ‘be careful not to over-mix the cookie dough to avoid a rubbery texture’ here. No gluten – no worries. Perfectly crumbly sandwich cookies await you.

The cookies are then shaped and baked, and in the mean time we busy bees can get on with the homemade “Nutella” filling. Are you excited? I know I am! We’ll need the remaining ground roasted hazelnuts (but keep a bit for later – they’ll be needed for making the sandwich cookies look extra pretty and yummy and well… you get the picture). The hazelnuts are blended even finer, and then cocoa powder, a pinch of salt (hello, flavour boost), honey and vegetable oil are added. Then everything is blended and blended and blended until we get a creamy gooey luscious brown mess that smells and tastes even better than store-bought Nutella (as proven by extensive and repeated testing – you’re welcome).

Now, depending on how strong and fancy your blender is, you’ll either end up with an ultra-smooth, or an a bit chunkier, crunchier version of the filling. Both are absolutely fine (more than fine, actually). The filling won’t be very soft or pipeable (totally a word), but we want that! Why? Because we’ll be able to stuff more of this deliciousness into the sandwich cookies, duh. In fact, the easiest way to assemble the sandwich cookies is to smear a bit of honey on the bottom of each cookie, shape the filling into a ball roughly the size of the cookies (yes, we’re going all out, yes, this is an awesome recipe), and make the cookie sandwich. Ta-daaaah. Now just repeat this until no more cookies remain.

If you’ve “accidentally” made an odd number of cookies, or you’ve been conservative with the filling (why???) and there’s some leftover, now would be a good moment to reward yourself for all the hard work you’ve done so far.

And then, after the sugar kicks in, we’ll dip the sandwich cookies into chocolate (which we’ve obviously made ourselves, and it’s obviously dairy and refined sugar free, and yes, I do mean made from scratch, obviously), and then we’ll sprinkle on the remaining ground roasted hazelnuts. ‘Cause that’s just how we roll.

So next time somebody wrinkles their nose at the thought of gluten, dairy and refined sugar free cookies, just shove these “Nutella” hazelnut chocolate sandwich cookies under the aforementioned offending nose, and you’ll have a “free from” convert. You’ll probably also have (a lot) less cookies on your hands, but, well, the things one does for other people’s enlightenment.