Petite Nutella Pochettes

World Nutella Day. It's hard to believe that an entire year has gone by! For this year I made Petite Nutella Pochettes. Petite Pochettes means Little Pockets in french and these are wonderful little pastries filled with Nutella.

They are easy to make and the best part is that they are a crowd pleaser. These disappeared almost as soon as I took them out of the oven. The pastry is not very sweet and is the perfect wrap for the nutella surprise that is inside.

Two bloggers, Bleeding Espresso and Ms. Adventures In Italy had a dream and a spoon and World Nutella Day was born. You can see creative recipes using nutella by visiting their blogs and the World Nutella Day site. Bakers are linking their recipes worldwide.

Petite Nutella Pochettes
adapted from Melissa d'Arabian, Food Network

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
Nutella
Small bowl of water
Confectioner's sugar

In a medium bowl, using a hand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese together until light and creamy. Add the flour slowly until the dough forms and then add the cocoa and mix until it is incorporated, but don't overmix. Use your hands to gather the dough into a ball and place on a piece of saran wrap. Flatten the ball into a disco and place in the refrigerator to chill at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Unwrap the saran wrap, leaving the dough on the wrap and place another piece of saran wrap over the top of the dough. Roll out the dough to about 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch fluted biscuit cutter, cut out circles and place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Form the scraps into a ball and reroll to make more circles.

Fill each dough circle with a small spoonful of nutella. Don't put too much on the circle otherwise it will ooze out during baking. Dip your finger in tap water and spread on the edge of the half circle to help create a seal. Fold the dough over to create a crescent. Bake 12-15 minutes. Cool, then sift confectioners' sugar on top and serve.

BAKED Sunday Morning: Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

I was so ready to make these chocolate mint thumbprint cookies for this week's BAKED Sunday Morning because I have been baking so much with pumpkin lately that I needed a little chocolate fix and when you throw in some mint, well, that's even better.

I used some Valhrona cocoa powder and since these seemed like they would be extra special cookies I even broke down and bought some Valhrona white chocolate for the white ganache filling.

The cookie dough was easy to make and it was the first time I used the little Andes baking mints and they melted nicely along with the dark Ghiradelli chocolate. I used the handle end of my cherry pitter to make the indentations in the cookies which I thought worked well.

But I must have made crater-size indentations because I ran low on the white ganache filling even though I made the amount the recipe called for and only made 1/2 of the cookie dough. I had just barely enough for 24 cookies. These are absolutely delicious cookies and I think they are special enough to make not only for holidays, but for any day you want to put a smile on someone's face. The mint with the dark chocolate and white chocolate is wonderful together.

This has nothing to do with the cookies, but I couldn't resist showing you a picture of our cat. Her official name is Sophie, but we have called her Little One since day one and it has stuck. This was one of those rare days that I was able to take a fairly decent picture of her. She is my husband's baby girl. Oh, she loves me too, but she loves him more. She follows him around like a puppy dog.

Be sure to check out the links of the other BAKED Sunday Mornings members to see if they made the chocolate mint thumbprints or decided to bake something else from BAKED Explorations. You can also find the recipe for these cookies over there.