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Nutella Linzer Cookies

February 13, 2018

I have always had a special interest in Linzer cookies. They are, obviously, Linzer. I am and Lindsey. 

You get it (right?).

But I rarely ever make them (I just eat them). Which is a crying shame because they are beautiful, delicious, and fun to make! I love the little window in the sugar-coated top cookie to let the delicious filling peak out. That filling is typically raspberry jam.

Now, I love some good raspberry jam as much as the next girl, but you know what would be better?

Nutella. 

And these Nutella Linzer cookies are absolutely perfect for Valentine’s Day! They have everything you need! A little sugar, a little chocolate, a heart cut out. Do you need anything else?

How to Make Them

The cookies that make up the Linzer are traditionally made with almond meal. However, using pure almond meal would result in a very crumbly and hard cookie. These cookies are a mix of my favorite sugar cookie and an almond cookie so that they still have that great almond flavor and texture, but aren’t overly crumbly or tough.

After the dough has been mixed, dump it out onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap it up into a ball. Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes or until it’s slightly firm. This will help you roll it out into a nice even sheet. 

Since the dough is rather soft, it would also help to chill the dough after it’s been rolled out which will help create evenly shaped cookies (which is pretty important when you are making cookie sandwiches). 

I like to roll my dough out on a sheet of parchment then transfer the parchment to a baking sheet, then the baking sheet to the fridge.

After a few minutes, the dough should be firm enough to cut out into shape.

Cut out circles (or whatever shape you like), then cut out the window in every other cookie. In this case, I used a small heart cookie cutter. 

Once the cookies come out of the oven and had had a chance to cool, match them up to find a tip and a bottom that are of similar size. 

Dust confectioners sugar over the top cookie and spread the Nutella over the underside side of the bottom cookie. 

Finally, reunite the top cookies with the bottom cookies to create delicious Nutella Linzer cookies. 

[yumprint-recipe id=’158′]

/ Filed In: Cookies, Cookies New, Desserts, Eat
Tagged: chocolate, cut out cookies, hazelnut, Linzer cookies, Nutella, powdered sugar, Valentine's day

Paleo Nutella

February 15, 2016

Nutella-title

After 30 days on the Whole 30 Challenge and 12 days reintroducing foods back into my diet, I learned two things: sugar and dairy do not agree with me. 

Do you hear that? 

That’s just my world shattering around me.

Almost ALL of my favorite things have dairy and sugar in them:

Chocolate

Ice Cream

Chocolate Ice Cream

And above all else….NUTELLA!!

That’s right folks, the days of enjoying Nutella without a care in the world are gone. Oh, don’t worry. I will still eat Nutella if I have to (i.e. I happen upon an open container and a spoon – shoot, who needs a spoon, I have 10 clean fingers). 

Nutella-8

So what does this girl do to remedy the situation? Learn to live without the heavenly chocolate-hazelnut spread? Oh hellllls no! She makes her Paleo Nutella.

It’s actually quite easy. You see, there is this magical plant out there that solves all of our problems – the coconut! I subbed in coconut sugar for granulated sugar and coconut milk for the milk that you would find in a bar of chocolate. The result: a creamy, chocolatey, sweet, nutty, Paleo Nutella that would make a piece of cardboard delicious. 

Nutella Collage

It all starts with some hazelnuts (and a few almonds because hazelnuts are expensive!). First I toasted them, then I roughed them up a bit in a dish towel to get as much of the skins removed as possible. Then I ground them up in a food processor until I got something akin to hazelnut butter. From there I added in the cocoa powder, coconut sugar, coconut oil, and salt. I kicked the food processor back on, and drizzled in the coconut milk until its smooth and creamy. Too little milk and you will have a ball of hazelnut dough. 

Nutella-9

I wasted no time spreading this on about everything I could find. An apple, a cracker, a banana slice. Man this stuff is good. And I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t made it myself that there isn’t any sugar or milk in it at all. 

Maybe there is hope for me after all!

[yumprint-recipe id=’103′] 

/ Filed In: Desserts, Eat, Paleo Dishes
Tagged: chocolate, hazelnut, Nutella, Paleo

National Pancake Day

September 26, 2014

I think children are like pancakes. You sort of ruin the first one, and you get better at it the second time around.
– Kelly Ripa
Happy National Pancake Day! I wanted to share some of my favorite pancake recipes with y’all since they are definitely my favorite breakfast food. I will be celebrating the day after National Pancake Day with a nice tall stack of my own.
 
Chocolate Hazelnut Pancakes
Biscuits Be Crazy - Chocolate Pancakes1
Peach Ricotta Pancakes
Peach-Ricotta-Pancakes5
 
Sugar Free, Gluten Free Pancakes with Strawberry Syrup
BBC Strawberry Pancakes3
 Protein Power PancakesDSC03410
 
Gingerbread Pancakes
Gingerbread-Pancakes
Pumpkin Pancakes
Pumpkin-Pancakes
And even though this is National Pancake Day, there is no sense in discriminating against international pancakes.
 
Dutch Baby (Pancake) with Berry Compote
Berry-Dutch-Pancake3
Whole Wheat Crepes
Whole-Wheat-Crepes
What is your favorite type of pancake?

/ Filed In: Eat
Tagged: breakfast, chocolate, gingerbread, hazelnut, pancakes, peach, pumpkin, whole wheat

Chocolate Hazelnut French Macarons

August 5, 2014

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons8Its probably fair to say that chocolate and hazelnut is one of my favorite flavor combinations, which should be obvious if you read last weeks post. I am racking my brain to try and think of anything else that comes close…maybe strawberry and vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter, or caramel and sea salt. Coincidentally, all would make excellent macaron flavors.

I have shared a macaron recipe before, but this time I am really going to go into the steps of making macarons. I have done a lot of experimenting and found some techniques that have worked well for me and ensure that my macarons turn out perfect!

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons1Every basic macaron recipe starts with the same 5 ingredients: almond flour, powdered sugar, granulated sugar, egg whites, and cream of tartar. I prefer to use Bob’s Red Mill almond meal because its a pretty finely ground and the skins have been removed. The Trader Joes stuff will work, but I would recommend processing it in a food processor before you sift it or else you will be throwing away good pieces of almond.

I also highly recommend sifting the almond meal BEFORE you measure it. Even if you use Bob’s Red Mill almond meal AND you process it, inevitably you will still have large almond pieces left over. Once I have 3/4 cup of sifted almond meal, I whisk it into my powdered sugar and make sure there are no clumps.

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons2The next major step is to whip up the eggs until they form a meringue. To make the meringue, I start with room temperature egg whites. I separate the eggs about 2 hours before I want to make the macarons, but this can be done overnight, too. I start whisking the eggs on high until the look a little foamy, then I add a pinch of cream of tartar. Eventually, the eggs will start to look opaque, which is when I slowly add the granulated sugar. Once all the sugar is in, I basically set the whisk on high and forget it until the eggs are shiny and white and resemble shaving cream.

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons3Because I wanted to flavor the macarons, I added hazelnut extract and food coloring to the meringue. If you forget, you can add it in when you mix in the almond meal, but I always worry that I might over mix the batter.

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons4I fold the almond meal into the meringue pretty gently. I just keep going until I no longer see dry almond meal and sugar. A lot of people liken the consistency of properly mixed macaron batter to molten lava.

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons5To me, that is kind of arbitrary since I have never seen molten lava. So I like to stir it until it slowly runs off my spatula in one stream of batter. If it is clumpy and and just breaks off in “pieces”, it needs a few more stirs.

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons6The mat you see in the picture above is the best macaron related purchase I have made. I love it! It helps me pipe out the macarons consistently and evenly.

To pipe the macarons, I spoon the batter in either a piping bag or a plastic bag and snip off about 1/2″ from the end. I like the opening to be rather wide so that I can just pipe out the batter in the center of the circle and keep the piping bag in the center almost like I am piping out a Hershey Kiss (rather than piping around the perimeter of the circle). The batter is so runny, that it will settle out to form a flat circle like you see above. To encourage that, I tap the bottom of the baking sheet on the counter which gets rid of any bumps or air bubbles.

One thing about macarons that is very different from other cookies is that you must keep them out to dry out for at least 15 minutes until you can press your finger on the top of the macaron and it just barely tacky. I like to start preheating the oven at this point, so the macarons and oven are ready at around the same time.

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons7I bake the macarons (one sheet at a time) at 300 degrees for 16 minutes. I set the timer for 8 minutes, rotate the baking sheet, then bake another 8 minutes. I find that the lower temperature and longer baking time helps them dry out and puff up, especially if you live in a humid area.

Once they cool, they should easily peel off of the mat. If they don’t, they are undercooked. But hopefully, you have a flat bottom on the cookie like the ones above. Then you can fill the cookies with Nutella or chocolate ganache. Guess which one I chose? (hint: Nutella).

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Macarons9I only spoon Nutella onto half the cookies. I take a plain matching cookie and press the Nutella down so it spreads across the surface and starts to peak out the sides.

Then I dig in! I am actually pretty good about not gorging myself on macarons. Partly because they are fairly rich for being so small and because I normally make them for other people. There is no sense in spending all that time and money (almond meal is expensive!) to just eat them yourself. Plus, I find that if you bring these to a party, people will be really impressed with your baking skills!

What is your favorite macaron flavor? What flavor should I make next?

[yumprint-recipe id=’31’] 

/ Filed In: Eat
Tagged: chocolate, cookies, hazelnut, macarons, Nutella

Ferrero Rocher Cookies

July 31, 2014

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies1Ferrero Rochers are possibly my favorite candy. Ever. My husband knows that if he needs to cheer me up or apologize he can buy me a Costco sized package of these chocolate-hazelnut confections and all will be forgiven. And because he buys be the large box, I had a few extra to toss into a batch of cookies.

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies3I started by unwrapping and chopping up about 10 Ferrero Rochers. It probably ended up being 8 because I kept stealing pieces. The Ferrero Rochers don’t need to be all that finely chopped, because once they get mixed in, they will break up a bit more.

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies5I added the candy pieces to my basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. I did tweak it a little bit by adding in some hazelnut extract (totally optional), reducing the granulate sugar by 2 tablespoons (these candies are a lot sweeter than normal chocolate chips), and halving the amount of chocolate chips.

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies6When it gets all mixed together, the Neutella filling is swirled into the dough, the chocolate-nut coating is broken up into smaller pieces, and the wafer cookie adds an extra bit of crunch.

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies7But every once and a while, a piece of the Ferrero Rocher stays pretty much in tact. And those are my favorite cookies.

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies8But really, all the cookies are wonderful. I am happy that I put chocolate chips in with the candies. My original idea was to use only FRs, but I would need a lot of them and they are really expensive! But the semi sweet chocolate cups helped balance out the super sweetness of the candy.

Ferrero-Rocher-Cookies2What is your favorite candy to add to cookies?

[yumprint-recipe id=’29’]

/ Filed In: Eat
Tagged: candy, chocolate, cookies, Ferrero Rocher, hazelnut

Chocolate Hazelnut Pancakes

May 19, 2014

Biscuits Be Crazy - Chocolate Pancakes1If the good people over at Neutella can convince us that their chocolate-hazelnut spread makes for a delicious addition to a nutritious breakfast (because toast is sooooo nutritious), then I can convince you that these chocolate hazelnut pancakes make a well rounded way to start your morning.

Biscuits Be Crazy - Chocolate Pancakes2Except we all know that this is pretty much dessert for breakfast. Which I am totally okay with, by the way. Life is too short NOT to have dessert for breakfast at least once and a while.

Biscuits Be Crazy - Chocolate Pancakes3

[yumprint-recipe id=’21’]

/ Filed In: Eat
Tagged: breakfast, chocolate, hazelnut, pancakes

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Hey There!

Hey there, I'm Lindsey. I'm a number cruncher by day and a home cook and baker by night. While I love to eat healthy and find fresh and healthy alternatives for my favorite foods, I will never turn down dessert! Life is all about moderation, right?

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