Nutella Biscuits

These Nutella biscuits have a crunchy, golden brown shortbread biscuit base with a creamy chocolate hazelnut filling and a heart shaped biscuit top. The easy dough is made with honey and brown sugar, as a nod to the flavors in the packaged Italian made Ferrero Nutella biscuits that this recipe imitates.

These biscuits are my version of Nutella Biscuits, which are made in Italy and sold throughout Europe. Ferrero launched them in November of 2019, and they've proven to be wildly popular. If you want to source them in the US, it's hard to find them outside of specialty international grocery stores or Amazon. With so many people complaining about their packages arriving in crumbles, I thought it would be fun to come up with my own biscuit recipe with Nutella.

For the honey brown sugar cookies, I adapted the pasta frola dough from my quince tart recipe. When I made the tart, I had leftover dough that I made into cookies. They turned out so nicely that I knew it would be a good starting point. I've omitted the baking powder from that recipe in order to obtain more crunch, and added honey and brown sugar to more closely match the ingredients found in Nutella biscuits. The easy shortcrust pastry dough results in a cookie that's packed full of buttery, honey flavor - much more than you'd get from the store-bought version.

I hope you enjoy giving these fun little chocolate hazelnut filled cookies a try!

If you like Nutella desserts, you'll also like this crostata alla nutella, an easy Italian tart made with a rich Nutella filling and a similar pasta frola dough.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• Recipe Tips
• Cookie vs. Biscuit
• 📖 Recipe
• More Cookies
• 💬 Comments

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter - Using unsalted butter allows you to control the total quantity of salt in the recipe. Salt content in salted butter varies from brand to brand.
• Brown sugar - Either light or dark brown sugar is fine to use here. Brown sugar adds sweetness and gives the cookie a wonderful caramel taste.
• Honey - Honey adds unique flavor, and the liquid helps bind the ingredients together.
• All purpose flour - Flour binds the dough together.
• Kosher salt - for enhanced flavor.
• Egg - One whole egg serves as a binder and adds fat and flavor to the dough. Lightly beating the egg before adding to the dough helps reduce the total amount of mixing time, ensuring that the dough remains tender.
• Nutella - The finished cookies are filled with Nutella, a sweet spread made with hazelnuts and cocoa (among other ingredients). Feel free to use any brand of chocolate hazelnut spread.

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Learn how to make Nutella biscuits! Follow the photos and step by step instructions for details.

Step 1: Make the dough. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar and honey on medium speed until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Step 2: Add flour and salt. Mix on medium low speed until mixture resembles fine sand. Scrape down the bowl several times to ensure no large pieces of butter remain.

Step 3: Add beaten egg. Mix on low speed just until mixture comes together. Do not over mix.

Step 4: Gather dough into a rectangle. Separate the dough into two uneven portions - one should be ⅔ of the dough, and the other should be ⅓. Flatten each dough piece into a round disc.

Step 5: Roll out each piece of dough to a thickness of ⅛" between two pieces of parchment paper (or a lightly floured surface, if you don't have parchment). Refrigerate rolled dough (still in parchment) on an upside down baking sheet for 30+ minutes.

Step 6: Remove the larger sheet of dough from the refrigerator. Loosen both layers of parchment paper, but keep the dough on a parchment base. Using a 2 ¾ inch round cookie cutter (affiliate link), cut out 28 circles. Place the circles into the wells of standard muffin tins.

Use your fingers (or the base of a shot glass/flat bottom of a whisk handle) to press the dough into the muffin tin. If the dough gets sticky while you're pressing it in, put the muffin tin in the refrigerator for a few minutes to cool.

Step 7: Bake the cookie bases at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes, until evenly golden brown around the edges. Set aside to cool.

Step 8: Using the smaller sheet of dough, cut out 28 circles using a 1 ¾ inch round cookie cutter (affiliate link). Evenly space the circles on a parchment lined cookie sheet in 4 rows of 6. Cut out 28 small 1 inch hearts using a mini heart cookie cutter (affiliate link). Place each heart in the center of a dough circle. Using the end of a paperclip or something similar, press 12 lines into the dough around the heart as if you were marking the hours on a clock face.

Step 9: Bake the cookie tops at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-11 minutes, until evenly golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Step 10: Using a piping bag (affiliate link) or a spoon, fill each cookie base with 12-14 grams (1 teaspoon) of Nutella. Gently shake the filled base back and forth to evenly distribute the Nutella. Carefully place a circular heart top onto the center of the Nutella.

Press down carefully and wiggle the cookie top in a circular motion a tiny bit to sink the cookie into the Nutella so that it's flush with the outer cookie edge. The filling should rise up so that it's visibly peeking out between the base and the top of the cookie.

Hint: When placing the heart tops on the Nutella filling, use an even, gentle pressing motion to keep the top level and prevent the Nutella from squishing out on just one side of the circle. Don't press too hard or the heart tops will break.

Substitutions

• Honey - Feel free to substitute honey with golden syrup (affiliate link) for a similar consistency and flavor. You can also use maple syrup, but note that it will give the cookies a more pronounced maple flavor.
• Brown sugar - If you find yourself out of brown sugar, you can make these biscuits with Nutella with an equal amount of granulated sugar. They'll have a slightly less golden color and caramel flavor but are still very good - I tested them both ways and both received great reviews.

Variations

If you'd like to try a variation on these Nutella filled biscuits, consider one of these options!

• Espresso - Add 2 teaspoons of espresso powder (affiliate link) to the dough for a boost of coffee flavor!
• Chocolate ganache - If you prefer not to use Nutella, you could mix up an easy chocolate ganache (just chocolate and cream) and use it as a filling instead. Try the dark chocolate ganache recipe from my triple chocolate drip cake!
• PB and J - Replace the Nutella with half peanut butter (or another nut butter) and half jam for a classic peanut butter and jelly taste.
• Dulce de leche - For a sweet caramel flavor, use dulce de leche instead of Nutella. I've got an easy homemade dulce de leche recipe you can make on the stovetop or in your Instant Pot pressure cooker!

You can also opt to make simple sandwich cookies using basic cut outs rather than creating the tart-like base and smaller topper. If so, you may need to adjust baking time slightly depending on the size of your cookie cutter. Simply select a cookie cutter and cut all the dough out using that shape. Bake and cool. Spread a bit of Nutella on one cookie and gently press with another to create a Nutella sandwich cookie.

Equipment

Items below contain affiliate links.

• These cookies are easy to make if you have a set of round cookie cutters. This is the set I've used for years. It contains 11 stainless steel graduated circles and can be used for donuts, biscuits, cookies, sandwiches, cakes - the list is endless!
• A 1" mini heart shaped cookie cutter from this heart cookie cutter set makes adding the decorative heart quick and easy.
• You'll need two standard muffin tins to make the base of the cookies. I use these USA Pan cupcake and muffin tins - they're excellent quality.
• I like these 16 inch piping bags - they're textured on the outside for better grip and are the most convenient size for all my baking projects.

Storage

Store the Nutella biscuits in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Recipe Tips

When pressing the dough circles into the muffin tins, be sure to center the dough so that the edge of the dough comes up the muffin tin sides evenly. You don't want a wonky shape that's too high on one side and too low on the another - this will make filling the cookies difficult later.

Cookie vs. Biscuit

What is the difference between cookies and biscuits?

In most English speaking countries outside of America, biscuits are often butter based sweet desserts that are thin and crispy and served with tea. In the USA, we would call them cookies. They are often shortbread style tea cookies.

Here in the US, biscuits refer to small quick breads that are usually leavened with buttermilk or baking powder. They are often savory, but can be sweet as well. In England and other English speaking countries, these are usually referred to as scones.

Since this recipe is a spinoff of an existing European product that already carries the biscuit name, I decided to use the same words rather than calling them Nutella cookies.

📖 Recipe

Made this recipe? Please leave a comment and a star review! ★★★★★

More Cookies

If you like this recipe for Nutella with biscuits, you might also enjoy these other cookie recipes!