51 | 52 Hazelnut Cinnamon Macaroons

Merry Christmas!

I hope you're enjoying this special season among family and friends, with lots of laughter and good food.

In case you're looking for a last-minute baking project - these Hazelnut Cinnamon Macaroons might be it:

 

Hazelnut Cinnamon Macaroons

From Saisonküche

3 eggs

50 g (3 1/2 tablespoons) butter, melted

60 g (1/3 cup) sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

200 g (2 cups) hazelnuts, ground

1 tablespoon flour

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
• Divide eggs.
• Mix together egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon, ground hazelnuts, flour, and melted butter.
• Beat egg whites until stiff and carefully fold into the egg yolk mix.
• Make heaps using two teaspoons and put onto prepared baking sheet.
• Bake for 15 minutes. Let cool.

 

My modifications:

None.

The taste:

Like Christmas. Nuts and cinnamon. You can't go wrong with this combination.

What are your favorite Christmas macaroons?

18 | 52 Strawberry Hazelnut Layer Cake

More strawberries?

Yes, please!

That's exactly why I changed this week's featured recipe to strawberries.

From blackberries. Even though blackberries are pretty awesome, too.

Strawberry Hazelnut Layer Cake

Adapted from Artful Desperado

For the cake:

100 g (3/4 cup) roasted hazelnuts, finely ground after roasting (skins removed)

270 g (2 1/4 cups) flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

210 g (15 tablespoons) soft butter

4 large eggs

40 g (1/3 cup) sugar

80 ml (1/3 cup) maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

For the mascarpone cream:

225g (1 cup) mascarpone cheese, soft

240 ml (1 cup) heavy cream

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

And of course:

about 500g (1 pound) fresh strawberries (or other berries of your choice)

• Preheat the oven to 175ºC (350ºF).
• For the cake, beat together butter, sugar, and eggs (don't worry if it looks a bit separated). Add remaining cake ingredients and mix until just combined.
• Pour batter into one (or two) small, greased springform pans (20cm / 8in diameter) and bake for about 25-35 minutes. (If you devided the batter into two pans, it will be baked through quicker than if you just use one. But I think you knew that.) Let cool.
• For the mascarpone cream, mix all ingredients together until thick with nice peaks. 
• Before layering the cake, make sure that you even out any curved cake tops (by cutting the curve off). If you used only one springform pan, cut the cake in the middle horizontally to get two cakes for layering.
• Now, layer as following: cake, mascarpone cream, berries, mascarpone cream, cake, mascarpone cream, berries.

My modifications:

Strawberries instead of blackberries. Regular flour instead of spelt flour. Regular sugar instead of superfine sugar (in the cake).

I also didn't mash some of the berries to put inbetween mascarpone and whole berries.

The taste:

Well. How should I say this.

The cake didn't go well together with the mascarpone cream and the berries. I know, hard to imagine but true.

Also, the cake was waaaaaay too dense. And I neither overmixed it nor overbaked it.

So, all in all it was edible (of course) but I would not make it again. Shame, isn't it?

Have you ever baked something that didn't really work combination-wise?

50*52 Haselnuss-Spekulatius (Hazelnut Speculoos)

Thanks to this blog, I finally started the Christmas baking.

So thank you blog, for putting at least a tiny bit of pressure on me.

Haselnuss-Spekulatius (Hazelnut Speculoos)

From Weihnachten - Das Goldene von GU

100 g hazelnuts, slivered

250 g flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

50 g hazelnuts, ground

100 g butter, room temperature

100 g sugar

3 teaspoons Spekulatius/speculoos spice

pinch of salt

1 egg

• Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F).
• Put parchment paper on two cookie sheets and sprinkle slivered hazelnuts on them.
• Combine flour, baking powder, and ground hazelnuts.
• Beat together butter, sugar, spice, and salt. Add egg and beat until creamy. Add flour mix at once and work into butter mix.
• Roll dough 3-4 mm (about 0.15 in) thick and cut into rectangles (about 4 x 6 cm/1.6 x 2.4 in). Put each one on the slivered hazelnuts, press lightly.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

My modifications:

None.

The taste:

Very yummy. But not very christmassy. More speculoos spice next time, maybe.

What are your favorite Christmas cookies to bake?

4*52 Chocolate-Hazelnut-Biscotti

Sometimes you just need something other than cake.
Something to nibble on. Even when you have guests.

Biscotti sound good. Adding chocolate and hazelnut seals the deal. Right?

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Biscotti

Recipe from Cynthia Barcomi found on Chötenechräpfli

280 g flour

50 g hazelnuts, ground

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

150 g sugar

2 eggs

45 g butter, melted and cooled

150 g semi-sweet chocolate

100 g hazelnuts, whole with skin

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
• Combine flour, ground nuts, baking soda and powder, salt, vanilla and sugar. Whisk together eggs and butter in a small bowl and add to the flour mix. Mix until combined well. Coarsely chop the chocolate and nuts and work quickly (to not melt the chocolate) into the dough.
• Form two logs and bake for 25 minutes. Take out and let cool 20 minutes on the cookie sheet. Using a bread knife, cut diagonally into 1.5 cm thick slices (leave them standing, don't 'lay' them down). Bake at 170°C (340°F) for another 10 minutes. Let cool.

My modifications:

I didn't roast the whole hazelnuts. I'm just not a big fan of roasting nuts (not sure why but partly because of lazyness...) but I never missed it.

In between both baking rounds and before cutting, I only let them cool for 5 minutes. That's probably why they don't look perfect because the chocolate melted. The original recipe says to let them cool for 20 minutes which I thought was too long for leaving the oven on without anything in it... If you can live with chocolate streaks like on my pictures, 5 minutes cooling time is enough.

The taste:

So very good! I predict that they won't last long anywhere...

What's your favorite (baked) nibble-food?