To be on the safe side, and to enable me to use them for this month's AlphaBakes challenge, I'm re-naming these as 'Viennese hazelnuts bars'. In case you haven't realised yet, the AlphaBakes challenge was to use the letter V, for either a Valentine's themed bake, or something with a name or principle ingredient beginning with V.
The hazelnut dough was made by creaming together 270g softened unsalted butter and 180g caster sugar until light and fluffy. Then two large egg yolks, the finely grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon was beaten in. The food mixer was then turned to it's lowest speed, and used to mix in 150g ground toasted hazelnuts and 360g plain flour. Once a dough had formed it was wrapped in cling film and refrigerated for an hour.
After cooling in the tin the cookie sheet was glazed with warmed, sieved apricot jam, then, when this was set, with a thin layer of glacé icing. When the icing had set the cookie sheet was removed from the baking tin and cut into 18 fingers.
I re-rolled the trimming from the dough, and cut out heart shapes which were baked for 15 minutes, at the same temperature, until firm and golden. These were then sandwiched in pairs with Nutella spread, as a nod to Valentine's Day.
It would be worth making the hazelnut dough just for this reason, as it is delicious, and didn't spread during baking. If making a large batch of sandwich biscuits, I would make a different chocolate filling, as Nutella is a bit too runny at room temperature (or maybe it was just my supermarket 'own brand' spread at fault!). I'd probably pretty them up with a drizzle of icing on top, too!
AlphaBakes (rules here) is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Caroline at Caroline Makes and Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker. This month, Caroline has chosen the letter V. Entries to the challenge have to use the chosen letter as the beginning letter for either the name of the bake, or one of the significant ingredients. This month, V for Valentine's Day was allowed, which widens the scope of the challenge a bit, as V isn't an easy letter to use.
6 comments:
They sound delicious! Bet they'd be nice sandwiched with dulce de leche too.
I have to try this hazelnut dough. The bars look great and I love the heart shaped cookies especially with the nutella filling. I'm on a nutella craze at the moment. Thanks for entering AlphaBakes.
These sound a delicious tea time treat- I've always wanted to go to Vienna and sample some of the amazing delicacies!
These look good, and the hazelnut dough sounds very useful.
Love the sound of the hazelnut and the combination with redcurrant jelly is very tempting.
These sound delicious - a bit like bakewell tarts perhaps only with hazelnut instead of almonds? Thanks for sharing with Alphabakes!
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