June Foodie Pen Pals + A Perfect Cookie

I may be republishing a few old posts from the past (this being one of them), so please just ignore the notifications you will get via email) – sorry about that! If this message does not start the post, then consider it to be a new one 🙂

 

Update: Sorry if my blog looks a little weird but the side bar that is usually directly next to my posts is right at the bottom of my page including the subscribe area, the categories etc. It will NOT for some reason appear next to my blogs and looks awful so as I try to contact wordpress.com incessantly without starting forum and actually just emailing them, I’m sorry you will have to deal with it! If any of you can help, please do 😀

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I know it is a little late but voila,my package finally arrived so here is my June Foodie Pen Pals 😀 😀 – So exciting right?

Sorry, what is Foodie Pen Pals?

Foodie Pen Pals is a food exchange program started by the wonderful Lindsay @ The Lean Green Bean between both foodie bloggers and food lovers in the US and Canada. She has forever been extending this project, now including the UK and recently, doing special exchanges across the Southern Hemisphere 😀

I was allowed to try it for one month and I was absolutely thrilled. Shopping for and waiting for food? how could it possibly get better right?

The wonderful Natt over at In Need Of Natt got my name for this exchange and it was absolutely wonderful 😀
Living in South Korea, the home of sweet and cute, she sent me a parcel determined to break any diets and pacts I had with dry bread and water (which I actually never made ;))

So here goes – yes, there was a little translation problem but hey, she is vegan and understands my vegetarianism so I know everything is sweet and beautifully meat free! Of course, I cannot have tasted everything by now (actually I could but mum worries about cavities and stuff ;)), so here is my wonderful parcel unwrapped – thank you so so much Natt 😀

These were some totally awesome Korean version of Skittles – yum!
And cute packaging right>

Ummm… this one will be a surprise when I open it but I think there is some kind of chocolate involved and seeds because of the birds 😀
Or mini chocolate eggs? 😉

A plethora of lollipops 😀
Who can resist apple, strawberry, cola or what I would assume, bubblegum?

If you shake it, it rattles like popping candy 😉

Sunflowers seeds! I can totally read 😀 😀

These are like chocolate freckles but instead of hundreds and thousands, there are small pearl-like balls stuck on – cute right? 😀

And now we get into the chocolate load up – love you Natt, know me way too well 😀

Can’t go wrong, so smooth, silky and smooth 😀

These next 2 bars, I am pretty sure they are chocolate, one grape and one peanut 😀 – Cool combos right?

Thanks again Natt, it was brilliant and I am sure as I quickly slowly progress, I will enjoy every minute! And your note was so wonderful too!

Want to join Lindsay’s awesome global village foodie project? Visit this page to find out all the info and sign up soon 😀
I love making friends around the world, as corny as that sounds 😉

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As much as I am sure I overloaded you all with food, I simply HAD to share a cookie recipe I recently made up – its highly chocolatey, thin-nish and very addictive so if you are in the mood for nice and simple, leave (or stay and bookmark for another day :D)
Due to my lack of desserts, this is one filled with my favourite things – white chocolate, Nutella, hazelnuts, brown butter 😀
Making this for an outing with friends, it is only coincidence that they like these things too (why else are we friends ;))

They are so soft and so beautifully melt-in-mouth, you will never be able to stop at one (assured!)
Also just be a little weary… I may or may not have smudged the white chocolate chip while putting them on top of the cookies… oops 😉

Enjoy the recipe my friends!

Brown Butter Hazelnutella Chip Cookies

Recipe Inspiration: Love And Olive Oil

Makes: 24

Ingredients

  • 113g butter, salted
  • 6 tbs caster sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup Nutella
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/2 tsp coffee essence
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1/2 cup hazelnut meal (ground hazelnuts)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 cup mini white chocolate chips

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper
  2. Brown butter over medium heat until it is frothy and has a nutty smell to it. As soon as a brown colour, remove from heat and coll for 5 minutes
  3. Stir in both sugars
  4. Mix in Nutella spread (because the mixture is warm, it will melt the Nutella into batter)
  5. Beat in egg then both essences
  6. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and hazelnut meal and whisk to combine
  7. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the mixture is smooth and combined
  8. Using a tsp, drop dollops of dough onto the baking sheet, keep them 4-ish cm apart
  9. Slightly flatten them with a knife and bake for 6-7 minutes or until set
  10. While cooling on tray, quickly press in white chocolate chips on top, as many as desire per cookie
  11. Transfer to a cooling and rack and cooling completely
  12. Fill with extra Nutella, make ice cream sandwiches and eat away 🙂

See, see did I not tell you these would be addictive? Here are a few more shots to get you in the indulgent mood 😉
Work that cookie!

These cookies have been linked to Zesty South Indian Kitchen’s Favourite Recipes Event – so much fun and Swathi hosts a diffrent one each month! This month, obviously, it is cookies 😀

Oh, and before I forget, to all those in the US, Happy 4th of July, I am really enjoying all your festive posts 😀
And a belated Happy Canada Day to the maple syrup gurus!

116 Comments

  1. Pingback: World Nutella Day 2013 | Go Bake Yourself

  2. Pingback: World Nutella Day 2013 « Go Bake Yourself

  3. viveka says:

    Love the sweet packaging – wonderful – really cute and unusual. What a “sweet” friend you have *smile – love your cookie too – even if I very seldom bake I have done something similar with out the nutella.

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  4. Sophie33 says:

    How much fun to receive such lovely foreign Koraen goodies that you! can eat! Yumy Yummy Yummy! Thanks for sharing it with us too! 🙂 Your home-mase cookies look utterly delicious! I must make them soon!

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  6. Pingback: Ironic Comfort « Go Bake Yourself

  8. Mei-i @ gastronomic nomad says:

    These wrappers are strange even for me and my Chinese supermarkets! I love what you did with your June foodie pen pal treats. I just joined and working on my first package now. Can’t wait!! Maybe we’ll be foodie pen pals at some point soon.

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  9. Geni - Sweet and Crumby says:

    I made these this weekend and brought them to the beach to share with friends. Everyone ADORED THEM AND WENT CRAZY! 🙂 Thanks for making me look good sweetie! This recipe was a dream and so totally addictive. I couldn’t keep my hand out of the bag of cookies this weekend and think I must have gained five pounds just eating cookies. Was totally worth it though. 🙂

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  10. Daisy@Nevertoosweet says:

    Oh my gosh! The Foodie pen pal is such a good idea! Is it hard to be part of it? AND OMG OMG OMG those cookies look and bet taste amazing! It’s got all the ingredients that I love nutella, white chocolate and CHOCOLATE 🙂

    Thanks for the great idea ~

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  11. Sawsan@ Chef in disguise says:

    I was going to tell you that this foodie penpals is a wonderful idea and I wish it was open to people outside the US, canada and Uk but then I saw the cookies and my mind went blank and I had to stare at the comment box for a couple of minutes to remember!

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  13. grace says:

    what a major score! so much chocolate, so little time. 🙂
    these cookies are great, but i’m predisposed to love anything containing white chocolate chips!

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  19. The Squishy Monster says:

    I keep hearing such awesome things about foodie pen pals, you’ve finally convinced me to really look into it…Natt makes an awesome point, how CAN you go wrong with candy?

    Thanks for the reminder…

    also, how can you go wrong with Nutella—I love your cookies!!!

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  28. applec says:

    What a neat idea! I’d love to do it but every month might be a bit much for me. Great idea though!
    The cookies looks so good! Great recipe.

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  34. Inger Wilkerson says:

    Foodie pen pal–how fun! On the wordpress support, my understanding is that they only provide support if you have a paid upgrade (like the ability to change your own code)–otherwise you are supposed to use the forums when you have problems. I have been reasonably successful finding answers there (though one time I actually changed themes because of an issue) Good luck.

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  35. eliotthecat says:

    Wow—I love all those brightly colored wrappers. It would make me want to do something crafty with them (after I ate them all, of course.) Are you getting alerts from EE again? I am about ready to shell out some dough for a original design and dump WP. 🙂

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  36. Louise says:

    I had a Pen Pal when I was a kid but she never sent me all those kinds of goodies! She did send me a lovely bracelet once that I still cherish though:)

    And, my goodness and goodness it is Uru. Those cookies look amazing!!! I sure wish I could nibble:)

    Thank you so much for sharing…

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  38. Jennie says:

    Oh my gosh! Look at all that candy. You lucky, lucky girl. Don’t you just love foodie pen pals? I got so excited when I received my last package, that I ate all the stuff and forgot to take a picture of it.

    As for these cookies- yummo! They look so moist and fudgy. Happy chomping!

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  39. Joanne says:

    Nom nom nom. All those chocolate bar varieties! I’d be in heaven. And the cookies sound amazing. You can’t go wrong when you put nutella into a baked good!

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  40. Promenade Claire says:

    The packaging is so fun, let alone the contents 🙂 So cool, well done Natt!
    and your cookies, oh boy do they look goo dto make and eat – I’m going to have to look out for some white chocolate drops like yours!!

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  43. Nami | Just One Cookbook says:

    Oh how fun when it’s delivered from another country! I don’t know too many Korean snacks, yet everything looks good! You didn’t have to travel all the way to eat these. How awesome! Make sure to brush your teeth! Haha.

    Your cookies look so good! I need to have some cookie recipes for play dates, and this one is definitely keeper – nutella? Count me in! Your friends are so lucky to get these cookies. I bet they are a great supporter of your blog too!

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    • Choc Chip Uru says:

      Haha it was pretty awesome 😀 – and you bet I will (only to eat more at night… shhhh ;))
      I am so glad you enjoyed them my friend, definitely kid friendly!

      And you bet they are, asbolutely love them!

      Cheers
      CCU

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  45. Starr says:

    Foodie pen pals, what a fun idea. Food varies so much from country to country, region to region, it’s interesting to see what other people are eating, and even better to try them… A-hem, such as your Nutella Cookies (hint, hint) 😀

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  47. Luv What You Do says:

    I have been on a huge cookie kick lately and these look amazing. I would never thinkt to use hazelnut paste, but hazelnut butter is absolutely delish, so I’m sure these would be incredible!

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  48. judy says:

    Foodie pen pals! What a fabulous idea. I love what Natt sent you and I’m glad you did not make any foolish pacts with dry bread and water — don’t even joke about it. 😉 Your cookies look amazing, too.

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  52. kalamitykelli says:

    YUUUUUMMM!!! Nothing better than candy! I like this post very much because my new grandson, Rocket? He is 1/4 Korean. His other grandma is from South Korea. She met and married an Air Force pilot when he was stationed there, came to the U.S. and gave birth to several children – one of whom is my son-in-law and in turn he married my daughter, who gave birth to our little prince!

    I also loved the chocolate cookies recipe! I may have to try this one …..”too sweet” is certainly NOT in my vocabulary!

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  55. hotlyspiced says:

    Sorry I can’t help you with your WP issues. I struggle along myself so if I helped, it would be the blind leading the blind. What a lovely package and yes, you did so well at interpreting Korean. What a tough looking language. And your cookies look so soft and moorish. I’d love a few right now xx

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  58. dianeskitchentable says:

    Very cool idea. Last year my daughter surprised me with this monthly delivery of different parts of meals. Some were past w/sauce, some desserts, some wines. It was always so much fun waiting to see what would be coming.

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  62. Rhonda says:

    Your pen pal hooked you up! I hope you share more about what was in the other packages. We have Asian markets here in Phoenix and I love looking at all the fun and colorful candy options!

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  64. Suzie says:

    The foodie pen pal idea is awesome! What a fun thing to give and receive 🙂 Your cookies look awesome, love how you just make up cookie recipes.

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  65. Liz says:

    Wow, what fun treats from Korea!!! I would have loved that package, too 🙂 And your cookies look perfect for my family…what could beat the combination of Nutella, white chocolate and brown butter?? YUM!

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  68. Suzi says:

    Wow, that looks like a fabulous package, yumm. What a cool idea the foodie oen pals. I am also loving those cookies, I like the hazel nut meal you added that sounds really good. Have a lovely day.

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  69. Mary says:

    Having all those wonderful treats around would be my downfall. As would those delicious cookies. They sound delicious. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary

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  71. apuginthekitchen says:

    The foodie pen pal is a great idea, we did something similar on food52 at Christmas, one of the cooks on the site organized it and we exchanged Christmas food gifts with each other, it included not just the USA but other countries as well, England, Australia, Canada, Africa, India. It was wonderful. Beautiful cookies too BTW!!

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  72. Just A Smidgen says:

    You’re so lucky to have a fun parcel like that arrive!! I love your soft cookies.. they’re so pretty studded with chips like that! Your baking is always so impressive, CCU.
    ps My blog does the same thing.. when clicking on a single post, the sidebar isn’t there which can be nice and clean for reading. If you click on any other tab, your sidebar is still there. I kind of like that, but I did add the word “subscribe” to my About page, because without a sidebar on my post reading page, people who come for a first time don’t know how to subscribe or where.. does that make sense??

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    • Choc Chip Uru says:

      Thank you so much my friend 😀
      And that is a good idea – I added a new page for it – in my case, the sidebar stopped coming entirely but I am thinking of buying a new theme anyway soon so hopefully 🙂

      Cheers
      CCU

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  73. Eva Taylor says:

    Thanks for sharing the packages of goodies you were sent by Natt; I just love seeing how other countries package foods. The chocolate chip cookie is exactly what I would look for in a CCC, soft and gooey on the inside and a few carefully placed chips on top. Very nice indeed; if it wasn’t so darn hot in Toronto, I would make them right away.

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  75. Elaine says:

    The Foodie Pen Pals sounds like a great idea and fun! It is always exciting to receive a box in the mail and especially when it is filled with goodies like yours. Your cookies look perfect! I like the idea of combining Nutella with some white chocolate.

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  76. thekalechronicles says:

    It is always fun to read the pen pal exchange blogs. And these cookies look marvelous. I think I might prefer them with some other chip (I’m not much on white chocolate except if I’m using it with mint or lemon), but I can’t think what. Maybe chopped toasted hazelnuts instead. I made brownies yesterday for Fourth of July: classic, with walnuts, and plain ones for purists.

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  77. Carine says:

    Everything looks so delicious!The foodie penpals exchange is such a great idea!
    Your cookies also look delicious. Ah Nutella… and to think that some people are allergic to hazelnuts and will never be able to taste this…

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  81. navane64 says:

    Lovely goodies from Korea and they do look tempting, esp the candies. I am admiring the cookies and these looks so wonderful

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  84. LauriesCravings says:

    I just joined the foodie pen pals program and I’m excited to get started. You got some awesome treats 🙂

    ❤ NUTELLA – especially in a cookie 🙂

    I also wanted to let you know that I've nominated you for an award… check out my site for more details. Congrats. LauriesCravings.blogspot.com

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  85. Jaime says:

    Oh my those cookies are real decadent!! Been missing your posts, cause I’ve been faffing about in Malaysia sorting out my visa but so glad to be back here again – always a goodie waiting to be enjoyed 🙂

    I’m really loving the foodie pen-pal idea and am popping over to check out the link now. Cheers x

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  86. Ames says:

    Foodie pen pals is such a great idea! You get to try foods from other countries and then share some from your own 🙂 That’s definitely one of the things I love about this whole blogging community :). And yay for the perfect cookie! I had some sticky date cookies from Coles this week that were pretty amazing too ;).

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  89. coachksr says:

    CCU, your photos are splendid, particularly the one of cookies and plant. I’m going to make these for the guys and gals working at a local barber shop–they always beg me to bring cookies (chocolate chip, of course)! We in the U.S. thank you for the 4th of July greetings. Another totally enjoyable post!

    Keep writing…

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  91. libishski says:

    I really like the idea of having foodie pen pals – thanks for sharing!

    And love love LOVE browned butter cookies. I made a batch of browned butter cookies, using smashed up Easter egg pieces as ‘chocolate chips’ a while ago and they were a hit. I will be trying these very soon as I can’t resist white chocolate. Yum!

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