I went off to buy some birdseed today, and while I was in Los Gatos, out of curiosity I decided to swing by their Trader Joe’s on my way back to the freeway. Never been there.
As the clerk was checking me out I mentioned to him that after you toast those raw hazelnuts you want to rub the skins off–they’re bitter.
Oh! Thank you, good to know! He was very pleased and I thought, now, there’s a foodie.
I have always loved to bake. With Ryan here, we have someone in the household again whom I can go to town around without feeling quite so guilty–it’s a problem when one person needs to lose weight and the other could sure stand to gain some.
Well, nuts. And so I went looking for recipes.
Which is how I came across this flourless chocolate hazelnut cake on a site that won a clearly well-deserved culinary award.
Caution, though: definitely read through before starting.
I told Richard in the middle of it that next time I would know what I was doing and it would go a whole lot faster. It took me something like an hour and a half to get it into the oven, checking and doublechecking that I wasn’t forgetting anything, figuring out why you do this and then that on the two sets of hazelnuts in definitely the order she said. And I’m glad she said a half pound here to let me know that the four ounce measure of them there was to be in weight, not volume–it made a cup, not a half cup.
Six eggs, two extra egg whites, dark chocolate, and 3/4 lb of nuts. We can live with that.
I didn’t add the liqueor nor the espresso powder, good little Mormon that I am, but I will say that only bourbon vanilla will do for chocolate. I scooped the last of the batter from the spatula and bowl and cuisinart and onto a plate and nuked it. Wow was it good!
She suggests topping it with ganache.
I think my old chocolate torte recipe just got totally upstaged.