Morning Tea t Work

Any excuse to try baking something new!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

These are good. The small amount of hazelnut meal added to the cookie dough makes a real difference to the flavour. Use the best quality cocoa powder and chocolate you can. You will probably need to add more plain flour - I found I needed to add in at least 1/4 cup more to get the consistency right, otherwise it's just too buttery. The recipe suggests dusting with cocoa powder to finish, but I did tiger stripes with melted chocolate instead, just for something different.

Ingredients
80g soft butter, chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup (50g) hazelnut meal
3/4 cup (110g) plain flour
1/4 cupt (25g) cocoa powder

100g dark chocolate, melted
50g butter, softened
1/3 cup (110g) Nutella or hazelnut spread

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C (160 for fan-forced). Grease two baking sheets (or line with non-stick baking paper).

Beat butter, sugar and egg in a small bowl with mixer until light and fluffy, stir in hazelnut meal, flour and cocoa. You may well need to add additional flour - the cookie dough shouldn't be too buttery. Form into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Roll dough out until approx 3mm thick (best done between two sheets of non-stick baking paper). Cut rounds from dough using a 4cm fluted cookie cutter. Place on prepared trays, bake for about 8 minutes, leave to cool on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack.

Beat cooled chocolate, butter and Nutella in a small bowl until thick and glossy.  Using a piping bag (or a spoon!) to sandwich cookies together with the chocolate and Nutella mix.

Vanilla Cupcakes

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Chocolate Fudge
 
This is very good, very rich, and very simple to make. As always with chocolate, don’t scrimp on the quality. I used Cadbury's Old Gold, which worked well. In my usual shambolic style, I got part way through and realised that I didn’t have quite enough chocolate. So I added in a bit of Nutella instead. It still tasted lovely, but didn’t set quite as well as it might have done. In hindsight, I probably should have adjusted the amount of condensed milk to compensate.

The Cointreau adds depth to the flavour, and counters the sweetness a bit. It’s not particularly orange-y with the 1 ½ tablespoons they specify – I’d be tempted to put in  a bit more next time I make it. Perhaps also some very finely grated orange zest. I also wonder whether the Cointreau and vanilla extract should actually be beaten in at the end, after the cooking.

But all in all, delicious, for very little effort.


Ingredients
400g chocolate, chopped
395g can of sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g unsalted butter, chopped
1 ½ tablespoons Cointreau

Lightly grease a 16cm square tin and line with non-stick baking paper.

Put chocolate, condensed milk, vanilla, butter and Cointreau into a medium, heavy-based saucepan over a low heat and stir until all the chocolate and butter has melted. Increase the heat to medium and simmer for 3-4 minutes until smooth and slightly thickened. Pour into prepared tin, leave to cool then refrigerate until set. Using a sharp knife, cut into squares. Store in the fridge.

(If you wanted to make white chocolate fudge, you could easily do so by just substituting white chocolate for the dark chocolate. I'd also up the amount of vanilla a bit. And change (or leave out) the liquer - maybe Bailey's instead?)