finished beauties

One of the many perks of working from home is having time to bake. Not only are these Halloween treats adorable, but they’re made with Nutella!

I used Giada’s ‘Chocolate Hazelnut Smooches’ recipe, with one modification: It calls for orange sugar, which I couldn’t find anywhere. So I rolled the cookies in shaved pieces of dried papaya instead. Below the fold are directions and more photos. Enjoy!


Ingredients

* 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup chocolate hazelnut spread (recommended: Nutella) [Could also use peanut butter to make the standard recipe that you see around Christmas time]
* 1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup light brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup orange sprinkles, or orange sugar [or a package of some kind of orange-colored dried fruit, such as papaya or apricots]
* 1 (9-ounce) package of chocolate candy kisses, unwrapped (recommended: Hershey’s)


Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In another medium bowl, place the chocolate hazelnut spread, butter, and both sugars. With electric or hand mixer, cream the ingredients together for about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and blend until incorporated. Stir in the dry ingredients in three small batches (to prevent kitchen messes!).

Using your hands, shape dough into walnut-sized balls. Roll the balls in the orange sugar, pressing to adhere. If you’re using dried fruit, push it through a cheese grater so that you have thin pieces to roll the cookies in. I added extra white sugar to the strings to reduce the stickiness:

papaya shreddedsugar

Place the cookies on parchment paper on a heavy cookie sheet about 4 inches apart.

dough parchment

Bake for 8 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven. Quickly place a chocolate kiss in the middle of each cookie. Return the cookies to the oven and bake for another 3 minutes. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

I made up cute little gift tins for our neighbors and Rand’s co-workers using leftover wrapped Kisses and papaya chunks. Adorable!

gift presentation