Keep me away from my kitchen for two weeks of traveling and then you can’t get me out of it. A pair of chocolate tortes yesterday, with one going to the neighbor who took in our mail; Alice Medrich‘s  Marjolaine (minus the espresso powder) today, (her chocolate cookbooks are the best!) and then chocolate pudding for tomorrow’s breakfast to use up the leftover egg yolks.  That one’s cooling as I type.

Note that when you toast hazelnuts you have to rub the skins off afterwards: they’re bitter. And after all that work, the nuts go rancid within a few weeks and must be used.

Twist my arm. I have at least another cup’s worth in the fridge to go play with. If you ground them into a paste and added ganache…? I may have to find out. Anybody got a favorite hazelnut recipe? For me to be able to eat it, it has to be in pretty fine pieces at least, hence the marjolaine, which is ganache of varying intensities covering four layers of ground hazelnuts and almonds embedded in meringue. And then the darkest ganache to cover it all.

This is also what happens when I need to gain weight.

Only, my sweetie wishes he had that problem…