Dressed up as your favorite Ferrero Rocher candy chocolate, all made in bowl and ready in 12minutes. Good? Good!

Is it even a holiday or a moment to feel fancy if someone hasn’t gifted you a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates? Or you don’t pick up a mini box right before check out?

These double chocolate chip cookies are chewy, packed with milk and semi-sweet chocolate and topped with more chocolate, hazelnuts and a tiny bit of edible gold leaf. Rarely would I say one cookie is enough, but one cookie enough.

These double chocolate chip cookies look, and taste just like a Ferrero Rocher and are incredibly easy to make. You most likely have all the ingredients at home. No chilling, resting or special equipment required.

Before we get into the recipe, I want to let everyone know that you can bake DELICIOUS indistinguishable from baked with butter cookies and cakes without butter.

Sometimes you are out of butter, other times you haven’t set out your butter to soften or you just don’t want to dirty another pot to melt it.

Do you need butter in baking? Absolutely. Butter makes cakes and cookies taste delicious, it adds to the texture and color. Do not count out butter just yet, BUT you can substitute a neutral flavored plant oil and get equally delicious results. Using oil is often the better option and although butter does make most things better, sometimes leaving out is just as good.

What kind of oil do you need to make these cookies? Any neutral plant oil.

Types of Neutral Flavored Plant Oils:

Avocado Oil

Grapeseed Oil

A light olive oil with a mild taste.

Corn Oil

Peanut Oil

Canola Oil

Refined Sunflower Oil (unrefined sunflower oil has a very distinct flavor)

Use what you have on hand. This isn’t a nutrition blog and I encourage you to research and find what products works best for you and your family!

Can I use margarine or a plant based butter to make these chocolate chocolate chip cookies?

No. Harsh I know, but for this you need all plant oil. Using a plant based butter or melted margarine will make these cookies crispy vs chewy.

Edible Gold Leaf

What is edible gold leaf?

Edible gold is pure gold processed into sheets, made without addition of copper and with trace amounts of silver ( which the body can safely ingest).

Edible gold leaf is fairly affordable and little goes a long way. Three sheets of gold leaf will be enough to decorate 12 cookies. Most gold leaf books contain about 25 sheets and cost about $30 up to $80 per booklet.

Do you need it to make these cookies? Nope. You can use any other decoration or omit it entirely. The flavor comes from the mixture of chocolate and the toasted hazelnut topping. The gold leaf is extra and a reason to play with gold leaf if that is something you’ve wanted to try!

Fun fact ( I don’t know if this is food blog appropriate, but who ever reads this much text in a blog any way right? If you have made it this far, let me know if I went too far).

Gold, when ingested, comes out the same way it goes in; do with that what you will…

The Chocolate

Bar milk chocolate and semi sweet chocolate chunks

Why use a bar and chips?

Chips and chunks have less cocoa butter, and sometimes additional stabilizers to help them maintain their shape. We love them for that. No one has turned their nose up at a chocolate chip, maybe someone, but not here.

Bar chocolate, not specifically baking chocolate but the kind you’d buy to snack on with coffee, normally shouldn’t contain stabilizers and will melt into whatever you’re baking, adding to texture and flavor.

There are so many, many, many, many articles on the types of chocolate, baking bars and chips on the internet I don’t think you need me to go into further details, This article from Southern Living has a good quick and dirty breakdown of chocolate types.

Cocoa powder

This is another one that leaves folks confused. There are apparently 8 types of cocoa powder. For this recipe, we’re using a combination of natural and dutch processed cocoa powder. You can find it already blended for use in the baking aisle.

This blend will give you the acidity and flavor you need to make these cookies work.

Chewy No Butter Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

(makes 12)

1 1/3 cup AP flour scooped and leveled

2/3 cup oil

1/3 cup + 2 tbsp cocoa powder

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

1 egg + 1 yolk

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbsp water

pinch salt

1 bar milk chocolate chopped coarsely

1/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks, reserving several to top cookies before baking.

1/3 cup toasted chopped hazelnuts

1/3 cup melted milk chocolate

Edible gold leaf* optional

Method:

Preheat oven to 325F

Using one large bowl, sift together: flour, baking, soda and powder along with salt and cocoa.

To the sifted ingredients add sugars, eggs, oil, coffee and chocolate.

Mix well until mixture resembles crumbly wet sand.

Using oiled hands roll and flatten disks of cookies onto a sheet pan.

THESE COOKIES DO NOT SPREAD! adjust size and desired shape before baking.

Top each disk with a few chocolate chips.

Bake for 12-15minutes until edges are just setbup but middle looks very soft. Allow to cool completely before handling. They will break before then.

Top with a drizzle of chocolate, hazelnuts and gold leaf ot enjoy plain.