Hazelnut shortbread wafers

roasting hazelnuts

This weekend I added a new item to the full menu at brucebakeryandbistro.com.  I love hazelnuts.  I never ate them as a kid.  When I discovered them as an adult it was still at a time when they weren't really a big deal here in the US, although they had been one of the most popular nuts in Europe for a long long long time!  Over the last few years that popularity is catching on here in the US, although I still find quite a few people who have never had a hazelnut.  I try to convert as many as I can.  

The new item added is hazelnut shortbread wafers.  These are light little cookies, crispy and thin.  They are not difficult to make although it took me a while to figure out the right thickness and shape and cooking time to get them to come out just the way I wanted.  

Hazelnuts are roasted and then ground.  When I do this for this particular cookie, I generally do not remove the skins as most people try to do when they use hazelnuts.  (I said skins, not shells.)  By keeping the skins on and grinding them up with the rest of the nut, the cookies have a bit of dark speckling here and there when they come out of the oven, and I absolutely love that.

The ground hazelnuts are mixed in with flour, salt, a small amount of sugar, lots of rich butter, and, very importantly, allspice and cinnamon which adds a bit of spicy warmth to the finished cookie.  The roasted nuttiness combined with that bit of spice is a very nice combination especially considering the light texture of these cookies.

They are rolled to a precise 1/6 inch thickness and then chilled.  Once firm, I cut them into 2-inch squares with slightly rounded corners, using a metal cutter to get as clean a cut as possible.  They are cooked exactly 17 minutes at 325, a relatively low temperature for a cookie but perfect for these.  

hazelnut shortbread wafers

And here they are.  Check them out on the site.  For those who are recent new invites, just remember to enter the password on the main page and you will be in and can see the entire menu.  I hope to be back to sending out food weekly again soon as the world tries to regain what normalcy it can after all the covid19 shutdowns.  So take a look as there have been several additions to the full menu since March.

Have a great late spring night everyone and enjoy the cool while you can.  Summer heat is on the way.