Week 17: Hazelnut Shortbread

I blame my parents for my early exposure to Nutella and resultant lifelong addiction to hazelnuts. I put hazelnuts in my oatmeal almost every morning and at every gelateria, I choose hazelnut (it was most crushing when I was in Vienna a couple summers ago and they didn't have it, but then again maybe they did and I just couldn't decipher it from the German menu).

Last week I headed to my favorite bulk foods store and picked up a large bag of raw hazelnuts, with many  delicious bowls of oatmeal in mind. But then I dug up this recipe that's been on my computer for a while. It was a recipe for hazelnut cookies with only 5 ingredients and were super simple, surely it was worth some of my stash.

So I followed along the recipe, I roasted, peeled, chopped and threw it all into my magic bullet (food processors are for adults, college kids get magic bullets). This is the part where I neglected a user comment that said not to try to make these without a food processor. I had been making food processor recipes all this time with my magic bullet, hummus, peanut butter, lemon bars, Mr. Bullet had tackled them all, until now. My cookie dough just wouldn't come together. I rolled it into logs the best I could and hoped that it would all come together while chilling in the fridge.

Unfortunately my cross-fingered prayers to the baked good deities were not heard and I was met with a colder version of the crumbly mess I had stuck in the fridge. Maybe leaving them overnight would work?

Since I've now become a morning person (I bet it was the oatmeal), I was up with well enough time to bake before my first class, which was when plan B came to mind. I should just press it all into a pan and make shortbread! And that was exactly what I did, and we all lived happily ever after. The End.

Hazelnut Shortbread

Adapted from Hazelnut Cookies

Yield: 20 cookies

• 1/2 cup roasted hazelnuts (roasting instructions here)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup flour (I used whole wheat)
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup butter, cold and chopped into little pieces 
• chocolate to drizzle (optional)

1. Roast nuts and allow to cool, peel by rubbing together with a dishcloth or paper towel (don't worry if you don't get all of the skin off)
2. Pulse nuts and and sugar in a food processor
3. Add flour and salt and mix until well blended
4. Add butter until dough comes together, or not
5. Now you have 2 options, the epicurious way and the collegebakergirl way. My way is described below, the alternate is linked above.
6. Preset oven to 350F
7. Press dough into a small pan (I was able to fill half of a 9" square pan), cut into 20 pieces, a pizza cutter works well
8. Bake for 12-14 minutes, allow to cool and break apart
9. drizzle with melted chocolate if desired

Had some extra chocolate left over and covered a Ritz cracker, mmm.

Nutella Granola Bars

I am a granola/energy/protein bar fiend. They're portable, tasty and can be quite healthy if you want them to be. Most importantly, they're also extremely customizable. Even though I have about 40-50 bars of many varieties lying in my room right now, none of them taste like the heavenly union between hazelnut and chocolate, which is a problem. Enter, the Nutella Granola Bar.

Nutella Granola Bars

Yield: 15 Bars

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup rice krispies cereal
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips (next time i'm going to replace these with more hazelnuts)
• 1/2 cup chopped roasted hazelnuts (refer to roasting instructions)
• 1/4 cup Nutella
• 2-4 tablespoons honey (depends on how sweet you like it, I think 4 was too many)

1. Preset oven to 350F
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl
3. Microwave honey and nutella for about 30 seconds
4. Mix wet and dry ingredients, hands work well
5. Press into a parchment lined or greased 9" pan (10" would be ideal, I used a 9" and had a bit of mix left, it was delicious 'raw')
6. Bake for 10-14 minutes (10 for chewy bars), allow to cool slightly (but not completely) and cut into bars/squares

Per Bar (using 4 tbsp honey):

159 calories | 10.7g sugar | 6.7g fat