What do you think makes a good cookie? Is it a cookie full of granola-ish things like cornmeal, oats, sunflower seeds, and whole wheat flour? Or is it a cookie exploding with all sorts of chocolate, fudge, coffee, hazelnuts, and almonds? You pick.

If you chose the second option, than you will love what’s in store in this week’s post for one of my new favorite recipes, mocha almond hazelnut fudge cookies. They are full of goodness and will definitely bring you into the Christmas season if the terrible Christmas music in all the stores and malls haven’t yet.I know the music is what everyone loves to hear when the beginning of December rolls around. Wink, wink! This year, I started hearing all the wonderful Christmas songs when I was in the Philippines in early October. Yes, October! Isn’t that just pure evil? The Philippines hears, on average, about 4 months of Christmas music every year and it all begins at the start of September. Yikes!!!

So, if you are in the Christmas spirit and looking for a cookie recipe where the fudge will explode in your mouth and the mocha after kick will put you into a coma ,whether you want to or not, than you have come to the right place!

Makes about 35 cookies depending on how big or small you make them.

Ingredients:

1 cup                           Butter, at room temperature
1 cup                           White sugar
½ cup                         Brown sugar
2                                    Large eggs
1 tsp                             Pure vanilla extract
2 cups                         All purpose flour
½ cup                         Cocoa powder
2 tbsp                          Instant coffee powder/granules
1 tsp                             Baking soda
1/4 tsp                        Salt
1 cup                            Chocolate chips (I use Chipits religiously)

½ cup                         Chopped almonds
½ cup                         Chopped hazelnuts
½ tsp                          Cinnamon
2 tbsp                         Brown sugar

Method:

• Over a medium warm saucepan, add the almonds, hazelnuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Fry the mixture for 5-8 minutes while stirring every 20-30 seconds so that the nuts don’t burn.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, coffee powder, baking soda and salt
• In a mixer, cream the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar together for 2 minutes, or until the mixture is fluffy.
• Add the eggs until incorporated into the mixture. Add the vanilla until incorporated.
• Add the dry ingredients in 2 additions until it is all combined. Do not over mix here!
• Fold in (or mix in on a low speed) chocolate chips, almonds, and hazelnuts.
• Refrigerate the dough for 45 minutes or up to 3 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees C and prepare 2 cookies sheets with parchment paper (Why parchment? Cookies never stick to parchment!)
• After the mix is refrigerated, roll the dough into whatever sized balls you would like (tbsp size works well) and set on your prepared cookie sheets.
• Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should begin to turn slightly in color and will also begin to crack a bit.
• Dunk in some ice cream or milk and have a good ol’ time!