Scottish Hazelnut Shortbread

Today I made some truly Scottish Hazelnut Shortbread, with Hazelnuts I foraged in Fife last week.

This recipe makes about 40 small shortbread bites - enough to feed my colleagues and give me the option to snack on dairy-free treats at work.

Ingredients:

100g Hazelnuts (out of their shells)
100g sugar
225g plain flour
200g dairy-free spread (or butter)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Toast Hazelnuts for 10 minutes.

Rub hazelnuts in a clean tea towel/muslin/between your fingers to rub off their skins (the hazelnuts, not your fingers).

Leave to cool.

Grind hazelnuts to a powder.

Mix together hazelnuts, flour and sugar.

Mix in dairy-free spread until it makes a soft dough.

Dust work surface with a mixture of flour and sugar.

Roll/flatten dough to 1cm thickness.

Cut out shapes.

Dip in sugar (optional).

Bake, one tray at a time, for 10 minutes.

Allow to cool.

Eat.

Until next time... Good Foraging! :)

The world has gone nuts (Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate cookies)

Hazelnuts - foraged in Methil, Fife

 This weekend has been another tragic time for humanity. Innocent people gunned down by people fuelled with hate and misguided justice. The world has truly gone nuts.

Today, I've been making cookies - as per a request on facebook. The recipe was posted on Nigella's community forum, by SeaSkyCakeKids, and I've only made some minor changes.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:

• 200g hazelnuts
• 150g salted butter
• 75g caster sugar
• 75g dark brown muscovado sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Method:

• Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan on a medium heat. Let them cool.
• Blitz half of the toasted hazelnuts in a food processor (I used a coffee grinder).
• Remove the skins from the remaining hazelnuts by rubbing a handful at a time between your hands or a dry towel.
• Roughly chop the skinned hazelnuts.
• Cream the butter and sugars together until soft and coffee-coloured.
• Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
• Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and ground hazelnuts and combine to form a soft dough.
• Mix in the chopped hazelnuts and chocolate chunks.
• Tip the dough onto a wide, long sheet of clingfilm and form it into a log shape, wrapping as you go. Once the log is completely wrapped, pop it in the freezer for 2 hours+.
• When ready to serve, preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Take the log out of the freezer and set it on a chopping board for 5 minutes – just enough time to make it possible for a knife to be pushed through it but not so long that the whole log defrosts unless you are making the full batch at once.
• Carefully, because the dough will be very stiff, and with a thick, sharp knife, cut 1cm slices from the log and lay them on a non-stick or lined baking sheet. Leave plenty of space between the cookies as they will spread in the oven.
  

Cookies ready to be baked

• Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. The cookies are done when the edges are just – and no more – starting to darken and the centre still looks soft. Leave the cookies on the hot tray for another 5 minutes and then slide a palette knife under them and move them onto a cooling rack.
  
  

  

  Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I hope they taste as good as they look/smell.

Next time, I'll be making a chestnut-based recipe. Until then, good foraging!