Secret Recipe Club: Cappuccino Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Cookies

So.
It's time once again for Group A's reveal for the Secret Recipe Club.  It's always fun when I get my email with a new blog to explore and drool over.  If you want to know more about SRC and why I'm revealing a recipe today, click over and see the explanation there.  Then come back to see what I made.  This month, the blog I perused was Easily Good Eats.
The premise of this blog is simple:  good food that is made with pantry staples - quick and easy preparation.  While the recipes sounded interesting, J nixed many of the things I suggested making.  He's not really into exotic, and while I do get him to try a variety of foods, he will say no sometimes.
I finally decided that the best route to go would be a baked good, and there were tons to choose from.  With J's love of chocolate chip cookies, I decided to bank on that and make something a little different that weren't so exotic that he'd have issues and I'd have a whole recipe to eat myself.
I have an ongoing love affair with Nutella.  It's chocolate and you're encouraged to eat it for breakfast.  How could that be wrong?  I've made cakes, and I've made ice cream.  While this doesn't actually use Nutella, the recipe uses the building blocks of Europe's favourite breakfast spread.  It even includes coffee, so really, this cookie is breakfast material!  Despite the fact that J rolled his eyes at me when I announced that these were breakfast fare, I think I've discovered my life's calling:  to convince the world that we should eat cookies for breakfast.  Or leftover chocolate cake if you're Bill Cosby.  Perhaps it's just as well that I don't have children, and just have a cat who is perfectly content to eat her kibble.
I present to you now Easily Good Eats' Cappucino Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Cookies:

Ingredients:

2-1/4 c flour
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
3/4 c butter, softened
4 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp instant coffee
1 c chocolate chunks
1 c hazelnuts, chopped

Method:
1.  In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking soda.  Dissolve coffee in milk in a measuring cup, and add vanilla.
2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, followed by the coffee mixture.  Stir in flour mixture.
3.  Add nuts and chocolate chunks.  Stir by hand until evenly distributed.  Refrigerate dough to rest overnight.
4.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Drop dough on prepared baking sheets about 2" apart.  Bake 10-12 minutes, or until golden in colour and still soft in the middle.  Cool 10 minutes on the baking sheet before removing to a rack to cool completely.

Adapted from Easily Good Eats

When I got married, my work friends had a Pampered Chef shower for me.  One of the things I got were these measuring cups.  This tiny one is the one I use the most!  It was perfect for dissolving the coffee in the milk and vanilla; and easily pourable when needed.  You know, if it were heated, this would be a tasty treat to serve with the cookies.

At my grocery store, the hazelnuts were labelled, "filberts".  They're a pain to chop.  They keep rolling away.  J asked why I didn't chop them in the Magic Bullet, but that would have been one more thing to get out and wash.  I soldiered on, and gave them a rough chop so there would be big pieces in the cookies.

I rested my dough overnight, but I'm not sure we noticed a big difference.  What I did notice was the cookies spread more on my baking stone than on a conventional non-stick cookie sheet.  There were 2 very different styles from the two sheets I was using.  The cookies are also very dark to begin with, so you need to watch them closely when they're close to done.

But don't they look nice?  Perfect for breakfast with a glass of milk.  Or a cuppa in the afternoon.  It's your call really.