Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies with Nutella Filling

 If you are looking for cookies for Santa, these Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies with Nutella Filling would totally fit the bill. 

These little hazelnut shortbread sandwich cookies are fabulously easy. Just make the dough, form it into a log, refrigerate it, and, when you are ready to make them, slice the dough and bake. Next, sandwich the cookies together with a dollop of Nutella in the center. 

Romanian Easter Bread | Cozonac

This month, the Bread Baking Babes are making Romanian Easter Bread.

I posted my braided dough on a bread baking group, and a sweet person posted, "Cozonac! It looks perfect! I'm Romanian and I know!" How cool is that? I'm pretty sure she is referring to Elle's (the Bread Baking Babes' kitchen of the month) bread, which I also posted, but I still beamed with pride. Bread geeks do that.

Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés

I'm pretty excited about these Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés.

First, I figured out how to put the accent over the "é."

Second, I was able to peel these hazelnuts so easily this time! I toasted them in a 325 degree F toaster oven for about 15 minutes, shaking the pan every 5 minutes (I actually started with frozen hazelnuts). Once I pulled the pan from the oven, I covered the hazelnuts with a paper towel, and started rubbing them together in the pan while they were still warm. In no time at all, the hazelnuts were peeled.**

These Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés may look like your average chocolate cookie, but the chocolate is very bittersweet, and the taste is quite sophisticated.

They are perfect with a glass of milk, a cup of coffee, or a glass of cabernet.

Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés

Makes about 55 cookies.

Ingredients

1 C hazelnuts, roasted and peeled**

1 C granulated sugar

2 tsp espresso powder disolved in 1 1/2 T warm water

5 ounces bittersweet (60 to 70 per cent) chocolate, chopped. 

6 T Dutch process cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 3/4 C all purpose flour

1 C cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a food processor with the metal blade, pulse the hazelnuts until roughly chopped. 
2. Add the sugar and espresso and pulse a few more times until the hazelnuts are finely chopped. 
3. Add the chocolate, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, and pulse a few more times, until the chocolate is finely chopped. 
4. Add 1 C of the flour and the butter and pulse until both ingredients are incorporated. This should only be a few pulses, until you cannot see bits of butter. 
5. Scrape the dough onto a large piece of wax paper and gradually knead in the rest of the flour.
6. Divide the dough in half and roll into two 11 inch logs. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours. Freeze the dough if you are not planning to use it right away. 
7. When it's time to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
8. Line baking sheets with parchment paper (I alternated two baking sheets and reused the parchment paper).
9. Cut the logs into 3/8 inch slices and place them about one and 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheet. 
10. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for 9 to 12 minutes. I baked mine for 10 minutes. They will be soft at first, but will firm up as they cool.
11. Cool on the baking sheet for about 3 minutes, and then cool on a wire rack. 

This recipe has been adapted from Nancy Baggett's Simply Sensational Cookies. It's a pretty amazing book.

Whole Wheat Hazelnut and Raisin Bread

This whole wheat hazelnut and raisin bread is nutty, flavorful, with a hint of sweet. The hydration in the dough is from the water used to soak the raisins, and is the perfect match for the whole wheat flour.

This bread can be either be made into boules, batards, or formed into sandwich loaves as I did.

"What can I do with this hazelnut raisin bread?" you ask.

Toast it, spread it with fig jam, or make make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, or even tuna or chicken salad sandwiches (which I did). Whatever main course salad that you might make with hazelnuts and raisins would translate perfectly into a sandwich with this bread. Crazy good.

This bread calls for toasted hazelnuts. Finding the hazelnuts was the first hurdle. I had forgotten that they are also called filberts. As I expressed my frustration that I could not find hazelnuts in the mass quantities of bins of nuts at my local Sprouts Market, one of the employees very politely pointed out the filbert bin (with "hazelnuts" in very fine print) right in front of me. Sheepish grin. If you can't find hazelnuts, walnuts or pecans would work well too.

The other issue with hazelnuts is peeling them. They typically come with a thin dark skin that most recipes will require that you remove.

One way is to roast the hazelnuts with the skins on and then rub the skins off with kitchen towels, and demonstrated in this video.

Another way is to boil the hazelnuts in water that has added baking soda as demonstrated by Alice Medrich for Julia Child in this video.

Having tried the roasting method in the past, I opted to try the boiling method. While neither one is easy, the boiling method sure gets off ALL of the skin. Be sure to use a large pot, because the water/baking soda mixture will bubble up quite a bit.

Whole Wheat Hazelnut and Raisin Bread

Makes two 2-pound loaves

Ingredients

136 grams raisins (I used golden raisins)

618 grams water

454 grams whole wheat flour

454 grams bread flour

4 grams instant yeast

136 grams hazelnuts, peeled, roasted (at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes or so), and roughly chopped

Instructions

1. Place the raisins in a small bowl and cover with water. Let soak for about 30 minutes.
2. Drain the water into another container (do not discard) and add enough water to bring the total weight to 618 grams
3. Add all of the ingredients except the raisins and hazelnuts to the bowl of a stand mixer and knead on the first speed for three minutes and on the second speed for 3 more minutes. 
4. Add the raisins and nuts and knead on low for about a minute to incorporate. Finish kneading by hand to evenly distribute the raisins and nuts. 
5. Allow the dough to rise in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap until doubled, about two hours, folding the dough over itself after one hour. 
6. Shape the dough into two loaves. If you are using bread pans, they should be 10 inches by 5 inches. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise for about 70 minutes. 
7. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and prepare for steam. 
8. Bake the loaves for about 35 minutes, until they reach an internal temperature of about 200 degrees F. If the loaves are browning too quickly, lower the temperature to 425 degrees F and tent the loaves loosely with foil. 
9. De-pan and cool completely on a rack. 

This is the Bread of the Month (BOM) for December for the Artisan Bread Bakers Facebook group. The recipe was contributed by David of Hearth Baked Tunes.

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Mini Hazelnut and Cacao Nib Madeleines

These mini hazelnut and cacao nib madeleines are super tiny (1 inch by 1 1/2 inches) and so "pop-able." They are dense and moist, and have a wonderful toasted hazelnut flavor. 

Cacao nibs you ask? They are essentially raw chocolate beans that have been chopped and roasted and are ready to be processed into chocolate. They don't really taste like chocolate. Instead, they add a hint of chocolate. While I'm not into food fads, the purveyors tout their "super food" healthiness. I just think they make these madeleines look pretty. 

I think these cookies would also be great dipped in melted chocolate. Either way, they are the perfect dessert cookie perched elegantly on a saucer next to your after dinner espresso, coffee, or digestif.

Mini Hazelnut and Cacao Nib Madeleines

Yield: about 38 tiny cakes.

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray

2 room temperature extra large eggs

1/3 C granulated sugar

3 ounces all purpose flour (about 2/3 cups)

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 T cacao nibs, finely ground in a clean coffee grinder

3/4 ounces toasted ground hazelnuts 

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp confectioner's sugar

Instructions

1. Spray two 20-cavity mini madeleine pans with the nonstick cooking spray, and place them on a baking sheet.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the eggs at medium speed for one minute.
3. Add the sugar, and whip at medium high speed for 5 minutes. The mixture should be thick and pale. 
4. Sift the flour and baking powder together into a medium bowl. Whisk in the salt.
5. Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture in two batches. 
6. Add the vanilla to the butter and fold into the mixture, one half at a time. 
7. Combine the cacao nibs and hazelnuts, and fold into the batter, 1/3 at a time, completely blending. 
8. Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and let the batter thicken for one hour.
9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
10. Fit a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch plain pastry tip and fill it with the batter. Pipe the batter into the cavities of the pan, filling them. 
11. Bake for 13 minutes. 
12. Tap the pans over a cooling rack to remove the cookies to cool. 
13. Sift the powdered sugar over the cookies right before serving.
14. The cookies will keep for 3 days in an airtight container. 

Adapted from Bite-Size Desserts: Creating Mini Sweet Treats, from Cupcakes to Cobblers to Custards and Cookies.The mini cheesecake recipe in the book is amazing.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Madeleines

Madeleines with cocoa, chocolate chips, Nutella, and Frangelico. Little chocolaty cakes with the wonderful flavor of hazelnuts. I had to bake these.