Nutella-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oooooohmygoodnes, are you ready for cookie insanity?  Because you've hit the jackpot here.  I'm not kidding.  I've only made this recipe once and already there's a gleam in my coworkers' eyes when the cookies are mentioned.  A fiendish gleam.  The cookies became renowned in just a matter of days.  I have my new Associate Editor to thank/blame for sharing this recipe with me.
Now before you start throwing things into a stand mixer, let me prep you a bit.  Everything about this recipe is wrong.  You *melt* the butter.  What?!?  You use 1 1/4 cup dark brown sugar.  Get out!  THREE kinds of chocolate chips.  There's greek yogurt involved.  Now before you stick out your tongue and try to tell me you're not doing that to your cookies, well, believe me when I say that all these wrong things make something so very right.  And if you try to cheat or change them, the Cookie Gods will know and they will smite you with subpar cookies.  So behave.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon plain greek yogurt
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 jar Nutella, chilled in refrigerator
• Coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Directions

(Pictures follow)

1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  The butter will begin to foam.  Make sure you whisk consistently during this process.  After a few minutes (mine took 5-10), the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan.  If you are iffy on whether or not it's brown, then it's not brown.  Continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma.  Immediately transfer the butter to a mixing bowl to prevent burning.  Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
3. With a stand or electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended.  Beat in the egg, yolk, vanilla, and yogurt until combined.  Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low speed until just combined.  Gently fold in all of the chocolate chips.
4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours in the refrigerator.  If you cheat and just put the mixing bowl in the fridge, your dough will be very hard to scoop out of the chilled bowl.  You will have to be tenacious to get that dough out of there.  Nobody wants that if it can be avoided.  Lesson learned for me.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°.  Once dough is chilled, measure about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball.  Flatten the dough ball very thinly in the palm of your hand or against your cookie sheet, then lift gingerly so it isn't stuck to your hand or the sheet.  Place 1 teaspoon of chilled Nutella in the middle and fold the dough around it. Gently roll into a ball.  Make sure that the Nutella isn't seeping out anywhere.  Add more dough to creases if needed.  Place dough balls on cookie sheet, 2 inches apart, and flatten gently with your hand. Nudge the dough ball so it isn't stuck in place to the sheet.
6. Bake the cookies 9-11 minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden brown.  They may look a bit underdone in the middle, but will continue to cook once out of the oven.  
7. Sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt, and let rest on the cookie sheet at least 2 minutes.  Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheet and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Step 2. Butter is foaming...

Still step 2.  We have bubbles...

End of step 2- browned butter transferred to mixing bowl. See the brownness?

Fresh from the oven, sprinkled with salt and allowed to sit.

Look at this deliciosity!