The Best Chocolate Nutella Lava Cookies

These Chocolate Nutella Lava Cookies are Oversized rich chocolate cookies with a molten Nutella lava center.

These are messy, rich and worth every calorie. Each cookie weighs about 5.5. oz. If you’re going to indulge, you might as well go big, right?

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted cold butter cut into small cubes
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• ½ cup graulated white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder use a premium brand for richer flavor; do not use dutch processed
• 1 cup cake flour
• 1½ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup Nutella it's best if you use a fresh new jar of Nutella as the spread will be very moist and easy to scoop

Instructions:

1. In a mixing bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes). Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Use your spatula to scrape the sides of your mixing bowl between each egg addition, to make sure all the batter is incorporated.
2. Add in cocoa, cake flour, all-purpose flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt and set mixer on lowest speed setting to stir until dough is just combined. You want the dough to be smooth and uniform in color, but you don't want to overmix it, so this should only take a few revolutions and less than 30 seconds. Stir in 1 cup of chocolate chips (reserve the remaining 1/3 cup).
3. Place the dough in the fridge for about 30-60 minutes to chill. You want the dough to be cold (but not to the point that it's hard) so it's less sticky to work with and won't spread too much in the oven.
4. Preheat oven to 410°F.
5. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats. Using your hand, loosely scoop out 4.5 oz of dough (weigh this out or you can try to divide dough evenly into 8 sections but it's best to weigh it out so that the cookies all cook evenly) and then flatten dough into a disc. The dough will be sticky but should be workable. Using an 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop, add 1.5 tbsp of Nutella to the center of your disc. Then carefully wrap your disc around the Nutella, forming a ball. Make sure that the Nutella is completely covered and there are no cracks in your dough. Repeat with remaining dough and Nutella. You will place four cookie balls on each baking sheet, spaced about 2 inches apart. Lightly press about 5-6 chocolate chips to the surface of each ball.
6. Place one baking sheet into the middle of the oven and place the remaining one in the fridge. Bake the cookies for about 11 minutes, or until the surface is dry and cookies look almost set, but may still be slightly darker in the middle. Remove from oven and remove other baking sheet from fridge and bake remaining cookies for about 11 minutes. After you remove the cookies from the oven, they need to cool directly on the cookie sheet and set. Do not remove cookies before they are set otherwise they will break. Allow cookies to cool at least 20 minutes. Once cookies have cooled and set, remove and enjoy.

Notes:

• A cookie scoop really helps to get the Nutella in the middle as you can scoop out a round ball and release it in the center of your dough. A fresh jar of Nutella is also easier to work with. If you are using an older jar of Nutella, you may want to warm up the Nutella so that it's easier to scoop.
• If your kitchen is very warm or you took a while to get all the cookies stuffed and your dough feels too soft, you can briefly put the first batch in the fridge for about 5-10 minutes before baking.
• I recommend baking one sheet at a time so that the cookies cook evenly and have even circulation.
• I also recommend that the dough be weighed out to ensure all the cookies are cooked the same amount. Otherwise some might turn out more cooked than others if the weight is a little different.