Celebrate Christmas with a batch of these German Hazelnut Cookies with Nutella Filling! They are easy to make and taste divine!
Preheat oven to 350° F.
In a baking pan toast your hazelnuts in one layer on the middle rack for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they are lightly colored and start to smell lovely. Wrap hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel and let them steam for 1 minute. Now, rub nuts in towel to remove loose skins. Don't worry about skins that don't come off. Let cool completely.
Grind the cooled nuts to a fine powder. Add some of the flour to prevent the nuts from turning to nut butter.
Mix ground nuts, flour, salt, and baking powder. In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream softened butter and sugar for about 5 minutes using the paddle attachment. Add the egg and vanilla towards the end and stir until fully incorporated.
Toss in dry ingredients and whisk until a dough comes together. Shape dough into a disk, wrap in cling film and chill for 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350 F, or 175 C. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to about 4 mm and cut out shapes. I like to use my Linzer Cookie Cutters for this step. Lay on the sheets and freeze for a couple of minutes. Bake for 8 minutes, take out of the oven and let cool on the cookie sheet.
Dust the tops with icing sugar. Take two matching halves. Spread some Nutella onto the bottom half of a cookie and sandwich them together.