Hazelnuts | Aapplemint

Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies

Oct 022012

Last week Gabrielle, a very dear friend of mine, who moved to New York a couple of years ago, visited me here in Mumbai. She always wanted to visit India, and since she’s getting married next month, she decided to make this a shopping cum holistic trip. After attending a months course at the yoga ashram in Kerala, she landed here to catch up with me and get some wedding shopping done. Since she already had her bridal jewellery sorted by her inlaws, she was keen on getting some beautiful info-western fusion wedding gowns. My sister makes the most beautiful wedding lenghas and gowns, and Gabby couldn’t ask for anything more. Actually she did – she asked me to bake for her !

Recently my inlaws travelled to Istanbul, and brought back gifts for everyone from their travels. Knowing what a hopeless foodie I am, they got me a KILO of Hazelnuts. Yup a whole kilo. How apt ! I was saving them for the right occasion and recipe, and luck favoured Gabby : its her favourite nut and I had plenty. Now I was torn between making rich sinful chocolate hazelnut brownies or plain hazelnut cookies. Knowing the brownies would be heavy on the calories I didn’t want her to gain those extra pounds before the big day, and yet I had to bake something a little more than just plain old cookies. So I picked Crinkle Cookies. Having made the regular chocolate crinkle cookies many times, ( which I’m wondering why I haven’t shared on the blog yet : I will do soon ) I knew are simply irresistible.

They are crispy on the outside but with a soft chewy centre and loaded with nuts.This is where a brownie meets a cookie, the best of both worlds. The recipe calls for a jar of Nutella and 2 cups of roasted hazelnuts. There is no need to add extra chocolate, as the Nutella is enough. I used this recipe, but I had to change it to my needs. A rule for baking cookies is always do a test batch first. Never blindly follow the recipe, as ovens differ and you may not want to risk all your cookies. Try baking one or two just to make sure you get it right, before you bake the whole batch. My first two batches resulted in black bottomed and hard cookies. So I kept the cookie batter in the fridge for a couple of more hours and baked them at a lower temperature for a few minutes longer. The result is in front of you. Bake them to believe me.

Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cups Nutella
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1-1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant coffee
1/3 cup milk
2 cups hazelnuts, toasted and finely chopped
1 cup powdered sugar

Combine the dry ingredients : flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside. In another bowl, beat the Nutella, butter, and granulated sugar for about 2 minutes with an electric beater. Add the eggs, vanilla, coffee and mix until incorporated. Reduce the speed to low and alternate additions of flour mixture and milk, starting and ending with the flour, and mixing until just combined after each addition. Fold in ½ cup of the chopped hazelnuts. Refrigerate the dough until firm, at least 2-4 hours. 8 hours worked best for me.

Preheat oven to 160 C. Line your baking trays with baking paper. Place the remaining hazelnuts and the powdered sugar in two separate bowls. Take about a tablespoon of the mixture and roll the dough into balls, roll in the hazelnuts, then roll in the powdered sugar. Place the balls 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake until the edges are set and the middle still looks a little soft, about 13-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. Just before serving, to jazz them up, drizzle with some Nutella.

A Very Rich Italian Chocolate Cake

All, Baking 34 Responses »

Jan 232009

Its got what every chocoholic dreams of … the perfect crackling exterior, the soft squidgy intensely chocolaty interior with just the right amount of nuts and hint of alcohol … take a bite of this cake and you can feel it melt away on your tongue, satisfying you to the very core … there is never such a thing as too much chocolate … I think this must be the food of God !

I’ve been away for long, and i couldn’t think of a better way to get back to my baking/blogging than this absolutely rich, flour-less and butter-less chocolate cake. I have a lot of catching up to do, but until then i leave you with this cake, see if you can resist it

Plain flour to dust
A wee bit of butter to grease the baking tin
125 gms hazelnuts
100 gms walnuts
225 gms blanched and peeled almonds
225 gms good quality dark chocolate (70%)
50 ml Amaretto
50 ml Tia Maria
2 Tablespoons black coffee
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp milk
220 gms caster sugar
5 large eggs – separated

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease and dust with flour a 24″ cake tin, and line the bottom with greaseproof paper. Place the hazelnuts and walnuts on a baking tray and lightly toast them. Let them cool. While the nuts are baking pulse the almonds and chocolate in a food processor until the consistence of breadcrumbs. Transfer to a large bow and stir in the Tia Maria, Amaretto, milk, coffee, cinnamon, and half the sugar. Add the egg yolks one at a time mixing well. Now take the walnuts and hazelnuts and blitz them coarsely in the food processor and add it to the cake mixture and mix well. in another clean bowl, whicsk te egg whites till stiff and then add the rest of the sugar and beat till shiny. Now very slowly fold in the whites spoon by spoon, without knocking out too much air. Pour into baking tin and bake in middle shelf for 1 hr or skewer comes out clean. Serve with a dollop of mascarpone or rich vanilla ice cream or just some good ole coffee/dessert wine !

Sunday Fiasco and Cheesecake

All, Dessert 60 Responses »

Oct 172007

Imagine …. you have friends coming over for Sunday lunch, which was planned over a week in advance, and they’ve requested Chinese. U are excited and want to impress, so you go all out and plan a really fancy menu… duck, grouper, crabs , prawns , beef , man tau , dumplings , udon noodles, tofu … , …. 3 desserts … the works ! Start a day ahead and go to the other side of town on a blazing hot day to get the ingredients while u are sick and your head is spinning and u even have diarrhea ( gross i know … sorry ). Not to mention the aching wisdom tooth which is digging into your cheek and making your whole left side sore. And you have to run frm one place to gather all the things, which are available in all different directions n specially to find a special ingredient – Mascarpone cheese which apparently is not available anywhere. Finally get back home in the evening and start off immediately, cutting, marinating n preparing getting everything ready for the next day. By the time you are finished its almost 11 and the last thing you do is whack a cheesecake in the oven which requires 1 hr 20 mins to bake. With an oven like mine which takes 45 mins to bake a 25 min recipe its definately going to take longer. So u are up till 2:30 a.m watching n waiting till the damn thing is done( which is another story altogether ). Finally u hit the bed with an alarm set for 7:30 as you have to go to the fish market at the port to buy some fresh seafood. U do wake up on time, brush and run. Manage to get some fresh crabs, prawns, and a beautiful Grouper. Back home, making the dough for Man Tau … steamed bread as it needs 2 hrs 20 mins to rise …. n still running around trying to organize which plates to serve what in, getting the place tidied up as you are expecting them at around 1 p.m …. and back to the kitchen , preparing the cold starters and dipping sauces. And then your mobile gets a “TEXT MESSAGE” saying sorry cant make it ..bla bla bla …. and you go like hmmm why couldn’t they have called instead … or more over why didn’t they inform a day ahead … but never mind u say alrite at least the others are comming … still gotta finish a few things. At around 12 u call the others as u want to make sure they have the directions to your house ( we moved recently ) and they go like … oh but didn’t u know we’re not comming, didn’t someone call u yesterday ( no ! no one did !!!) !!! At that point what do you do ???? What would your reaction be ??? Obviously try n coax them to come … after all you’ve slogged your sick butt out for them. But nothing … all you end up with is 2 fridges full of food and a very very very foul mood !

Can you believe that … your own friends … ! I think i’m just being too touchy about the whole issue and over reacting, anyone else and i wouldn’t have minded … would’ve just invited someone else over the next day and recycled the food, but this time i was just too pissed off. But now that i’ve shared it i feel better. Phew. So now that thats done … let me tell you about my cheesecake.

Amarula Chocolate and Mascarpone cheesecake with a Hazelnut and flapjack crust.

You may want to know what Amarula is. It is a South African cream liqueur made with the fruit of the African Marula tree. To me its Africa’s version of Irish Cream. Its a little sweeter and less alcoholic compared to Baileys Irish cream , and its obviously the preferred drink here. I thought it would be perfect for my cheesecake, which was a Delia Smith recipe but i had to change it drastically as i believe they never give the perfect recipe and u never get the results they claim to get. Also i did make a BIG mistake of using Creme Fraiche instead of the Fromage frais ( cuz thats what i found… not easy getting European products in Ghana). So well i had to re do it. Imagine my disappointment, when after baking it for almost 2 hrs i touch the cake and it still wobbles like a water bed. Eek ! i poured out the whole thing again and added some eggs and some more mascarpone whisked it all together and re baked it. And voila – it worked ! So here’s the full proof recipe …

Ingredients

200gms dark chocolate
2 x tub mascarpone
2 x 200g fromage frais 8% fat
2-3 shots of Amarula
6 large eggs
80 gms caster sugar
100 gms chopped hazelnuts
270 gms Lyons country snapjacks – crushed by hand
50 gms melted butter
chocolate curls to decorate

Start with the base of the cheesecake. I used a 26 cm loose bottom tin. Mix the butter, hazelnuts and biscuits and press it in the tin all over the bottom and raise it a little on the sides. Bake it for 20mins at 150 degrees C , and let it cool.
For the cheesecake, start with melting the chocolate in a double boiler and melt till smooth. In another big bowl mix the mascarpone and fromage frais with an electric hand whisk and when blended to a smooth consistency add the eggs and sugar. Mix it well again and fold in the melted chocolate and Amarula. U can use Irish cream instead . Pour it into the tin and bake for 1 hr 20 mins or till u think the cheesecake is set and very slightly wobbly at the center.May take longer depending on your oven. Then remove it gently and leave it on the counter and let it cool and then chill it overnight. To serve decorate with chocolate curls.