Friday 22 February 2013

Homemade gift no.29

Can there be any greater gift than the gift of homemade baked goods? Well yes there can: a trip to Paris, a pair of Dinny Hall tiered smokey quartz earrings, dinner at The Wolseley ....... the list is endless. However, if funds are restricted and birthdays are booming, a tin of Nigel Slater's soft bake chocolate and hazelnut cookies, lovingly baked by you can go a long way. I like to half dip some of them in white chocolate for a few extra calories...........

200g dark chocolate at least 70% cocoa solids
75g butter
225g light muscovado sugar
2 eggsvanilla extract
50g skinned hazelnuts

150g self-raising flour
Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a small pan of simmering water, with the base of the bowl not quite touching the water. Allow the chocolate to melt. Turn off the heat as soon as the chocolate has melted.
Cream the butter and sugar till smooth and creamy. Whisk the eggs lightly in another bowl just enough to break them up, then add gradually to the butter and sugar with a couple of drops of vanilla extract, beating constantly. 
Toast the hazelnuts in a shallow pan till golden, shaking regularly so they colour evenly. Grind the nuts coarsely to the texture of gravel, remove half and continue grinding the other half until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the flour, melted chocolate and both textures of nut to the mixture. Stop beating as soon as everything is combined.
Place large, heaped tablespoons of the mixture on to a baking sheet lined with parchment. You should get 12 large biscuits. The mixture can wait for a few minutes if you are baking them in two batches. Don't flatten the cookies, they will do so in the oven.
Bake for 10 minutes. The cookies will have spread and be very soft to the touch. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little. As soon as they are cool enough to move without breaking, slide a palette knife underneath and carefully lift them on to a cooling rack. Then try not to eat them all before you have handed them over........

Top tip: a little of what you fancy does you good....... it is still February after all.

25 comments:

  1. I missed your piece on Jane. So may I now say that my wife was at school with her. And as for Marianne... she came to my 60th birthday party!
    Those bikkies look good, although I might leave out the nuts, and eat them separately.

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  2. YUM !! I'm not really a biscuit/dessert kinda gal BUT, homemade chocolate hazelnut cookies I would not be able to resist ....... especially if they are soft in the middle !
    Thanks for your comment today ..... I will catch up with the Culture Show on iplayer. XXXX

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  3. Oh, they sound mouth wateringly delicious and I want some. Guess I'll have to take myself out to the kitchen now and make some. Thankyou. Have a great weekend.
    Patricia x

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  4. Hello:
    These biscuits look mouth wateringly delicious. We never buy any biscuits since we simply demolish them all in an instant. So, were you to appear on the doorstep with these, we should be thrilled and dancing happy dances round the apartment!!

    There is something so touching about giving a hand made product, whatever it might be.It shows one cares!

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  5. Oooh, those look soooo yummy! Trouble with me is, I'm so greedy, I'd make them 'for a gift', then eat them all myself! Have a good weekend X

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  6. On par with a dinner at The W? or the smoky quartz earings? Have to make these toot sweet

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  7. I've tried loads of cookie recipes, but they are never very soft in the middle, which is how I like them, so I'm going to try yours (Nigels) this weekend, thanks. Julie x

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  8. These look fabulous-my mouth is already watering!!xx

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  9. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh delicious.
    Must try.
    have a lovely weekend, dear friend.
    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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  10. Now, I want some really cold milk to dunk them into...

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  11. I'd never made cookies until a couple of weeks ago. It was indeed difficult to wait until they were cool. Now I'm hooked. It'll be these next... thanks!!

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  12. Yum! My birthday is in February, and it's never nice out. So extra calories and fat are totally appropriate.

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  13. Oh my goodness you temptress! I'm supposed to be cutting down on this sort of thing and now you have me drooling!xx

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  14. Yummy! I'm not baking at the moment ( laid up after an operation!) but I will aim to make these when I am up to it!

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  15. Oh, these look absolutely scrumptious!!
    xo TJ

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  16. You are single handedly ruining my waistline....

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  17. So agree that home-made comfort food is the best! Gifts like this are always welcomed - (and they WON'T end up in the charity shop!)

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  18. Oh yum! I could so do with some of these right now. They look really good and I'd be very happy indeed to receive a gift like this :-)

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  19. Mmmmm, I could be a worthy recipient..... My office is freezing, it is pissing down outside and my chore list is growing like pinochio's nose.

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  20. I'm not a big fan of cookies TBH--I don't like that soft chewy bit in the middle.

    I was amazed to hear that my girlfriend has never had homemade scones, so I'm going to put that right soon with my ace scone recipe involving natural yoghurt and vanilla. She'll be mine forever!

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  21. These cookies would never live to see the oven -- I'd eat the dough.

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