Easy Rye Flour Cookies with Chocolate & Toasted Hazelnuts

An absolutely classic chocolate chip cookie—with a rye and hazelnut twist! These Rye Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies are deeply flavorful and rich, thanks to the toasted rye flour and carefully chosen mix-ins. It’s a recipe inspired by experimenting with rye flour during my pastry school days, where balancing texture and flavor was always at the heart of a great bake. Complex, nutty, and just the right amount of indulgent, these cookies are anything but ordinary.

Indulge in the rich flavors of dark chocolate, rye flour, and hazelnuts as they come together in these sumptuous rye chocolate chunk cookies. It's a new recipe set to rival the classic chocolate chip cookies we all love!

⭐ Why You’ll Love This Recipe 

• Wholesome Twist: The rye flour adds a unique, whole-grain depth of flavor, setting these dark chocolate cookies apart from conventional cooking.
• Crunchy Hazelnut Delight: Toasted hazelnuts not only bring a nutty flavor but also a delightful crunch to each bite.
• Sweet and Salty: The sprinkling of flaky sea salt on top enhances the sweet flavors, offering a tantalizing taste contrast.
• Chocolate Overload: With a blend of chocolate chips and chopped chocolate, every mouthful is a chocolaty dream!

🍴Ingredients 

Here are some of the key ingredients you'll need to make these delicious cookies:

• Rye Flour: A whole grain alternative to wheat flour, rye flour offers a slightly nutty flavor, perfect for giving these cookies their unique touch.
• All-Purpose Flour: This versatile purpose flour forms the foundation of countless baked goods, ensuring our cookies have the perfect texture.
• Chocolate Chips: Who can resist classic chocolate chip cookies? Our recipe calls for chocolate chunks and chips for double the decadence!
• Hazelnuts: These aren't just any nuts; when blended or blitzed, they can be transformed into a delightful hazelnut praline, enhancing our cookie's flavor profile.
• Flakey Sea Salt: Elevate your cookies with a hint of sea salt; a simple sprinkle takes them from great to gourmet.

⏲️ Substitutions & Variations

Not a fan of hazelnuts or dark chocolate for these Rye Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies? Not a problem! If these are inclusions are not to your liking, you can substitute another option.

• Swap dark chocolate for white chocolate or a mix to suit your palate.
• Not a fan of hazelnuts? Try peanuts or keep it simple with just the chocolate chips.
• Spelt flour can be a great substitute for those looking to move away from rye flour.
• For an extra dose of chocolate, add a wee bit of dutch cocoa powder to the dry ingredients.

How to make Rye Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

• Mix Dry Ingredients: Whisk together the all-purpose flour, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl.

• Toasting Rye Flour & Butter: In a small skillet over medium-high heat, toast the rye flour until it is fragrant and a few shades darker, about 5 minutes, making sure that you're stirring often. Remove the skillet from the stove, add the butter and stir allowing the butter to melt into the rye flour.

• Mixing Cookie Dough: Mix together the sugar, eggs, molasses and vanilla in a large bowl. When the rye-butter mixture has cooled, stir into the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and stir until everything is combined. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and hazelnuts.

• Chilling the dough: Place your dough in the fridge overnight, or at bare minimum one hour- this helps add to the texture, flavor and prevents spreading of the cookie when they are ready to bake!

• The Bake: Heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare your baking sheets with parchment paper. Add cookies about 2-inches apart on your baking sheets. One sheet at a time, bake your cookies until the edges are firm and the centers are soft, about 12-14 minutes. Cool your cookies on a wire rack, pour yourself a hefty glass of milk, dunk and enjoy!

👩🏻‍🍳 Expert Tips

• Ensure your unsalted butter is at room temperature. This makes it easier to cream butter effectively.
• Always pre-heat your oven and position the oven rack in the middle. This ensures even baking.
• Use parchment paper on your baking sheet to avoid cookies sticking and for easy clean-up.
• Let the cookie dough rest in the refrigerator for about an hour. This helps in creating those mouth-watering chocolate puddles when baked.

Tips for accurate measuring

When it comes to the science of baking, it is imperative that you’re measuring your ingredients as precisely and accurately as possible. This is why I highly recommend that you invest in a kitchen scale!

Dry ingredients in particular can vary widely in terms of weight vs. volume depending on how you measure them. Using a scale will also save you time; cut back on cleanup; and will allow for more consistent baking success - a total win!

The importance of room temperature ingredients

In order to properly mix, cream or emulsify ingredients they need to be incorporated at room temperature unless stated otherwise. Adding cold ingredients can create a lumpy or curdled batter instead of a batter that is luxuriously velvety, light and fluffy.

If you haven't remembered to remove your ingredients from the fridge a few hours before baking, there are a few shortcuts that will help to bring ingredients to room temperature quickly!

Room Temperature Eggs: I like to cover my cold whole eggs with warm water for a few minutes before baking with them - after 3-5 minutes in warm water they will reach room temperature.

Room Temperature Dairy: To slightly warm butter and other dairy products I will use the microwave! Bring the microwave power down to 3, then lightly warm the ingredients in 30-second spurts until your dairy is room temperature butter is softened not melted.

❄️ Storing & Freezing Cookie Dough

Once you've mixed the cookie dough, make sure to place it in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. This chilling process helps to solidify the fat in your dough prior to baking. Since these cookies have a significant amount of melted butter, chilling the dough before baking your cookies from spreading in the oven and allows them to retain their shape.

Freezing Cookie Dough

 Instead of baking all your cookies all at once, I prefer to keep the scooped dough wrapped in the freezer. Then, when you get another craving, pull a few out and bake them fresh!

Once you've chilled the cookie dough for at least one hour, scoop it into balls using a cookie scooper or tablespoon. Place scooped cookies on a small baking sheet or plate lined with parchment paper. Wrap with plastic, then place in the freezer for thirty minutes.

This process allows the cookies to firm up a bit before placing frozen cookies into a ziplock bag and storing them in the freezer. Freezing the cookies separately for thirty minutes will prevent them from sticking together in the ziplock.

Baking Frozen Cookie Dough

The next time you have a craving for a freshly baked cookie, simply remove the cookie from the freezer and bake! It may take you a few extra minutes to bake as they are frozen so keep this in mind as you set your timer.

Make a couple cookie variations, then add them to your freezer stash! I like to keep my Ginger Molasses Cookies, Oatmeal Date Cookies and delcious Breakfast cookies frozen and ready to be baked when a craving strikes!

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