Gluten-Free Nutella-Stuffed Brown Butter Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies - Guest Post!

Today's guest post is by my friend Dori from OKnLA.  Dori and I worked on the same team but in different cities at a marketing/project management agency.  She is living the life, meeting celebs, kicking butt and taking names out in Los Angeles.  I miss working with Dori, but love keeping in touch and reading about her adventures!

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Hello!  I'm Doriean and I blog over at oknla.blogspot.com.  Normally my blogs consist of album covers, music opinions and images of my life in Los Angeles.  But today, because Stacey was so great to ask me, I'm sharing a baking post!

I love baking.  Since I moved to my current place (a guest room off of my friends' garage) I haven't been able to bake much because I don't have my own kitchen anymore.  I didn't think I would miss it much, but I do!  So any excuse to bake is a good one.

This picture is from Ambitious Kitchen's blog- she has beautiful photography.  This is what the finished cookies should look like!

I've wanted to try this recipe from Ambitious Kitchen for a while with one twist; I wanted to make them gluten-free.  I don't have a gluten allergy, but I've found my body feels so much better when I avoid gluten.  So lately I've been doing my best to go gluten-free, meaning I use a different kind of flour.

My favorite part about making these cookies was melting the butter.  Okay, I'm lying.  My favorite part was the Nutella.  I love Nutella.  Whoever created Nutella should receive a medal.  Or a shrine.  Nutella is the most amazing spread and it's a wonderful addition to a cookie.

But back to the butter.  Usually when I make cookies I let butter reach room temperature.  But this recipe required melting the butter in a saucepan, and I love the way that move increases the buttery flavor of the cookies.  The rest of the steps to making these cookies are pretty typical, except that you should leave the dough in the refrigerator for at least two hour before baking so that the ingredients mingle and set.  Once that happens, you roll the dough into cookie dough balls, flatten the balls, grab a spoonful of Nutella, eat it.  Then grab another spoonful and plop it into the flattened dough ball.  Recreate the ball so that there's no Nutella poking out and then place it on the cookie sheet.  Fill your sheet and bake those puppies!

Now, gluten is one of the main things that make things like bread, muffins and cookies rise.  Without it, these items come out flat and not as picture perfect.  But they still taste yummy!  So if you're using gluten-free flour like I did, know that these cookies will be really flat.  But I promise, even though they're not picture perfect, they are for sure tummy perfect.

Thanks for reading!  Eat something yummy today, even if it's not gluten free.