Nutty Cookie Monster

March 1, 2013 6:46 AM

I somehow have come into the ownership of a pound of ground hazlenuts. Help me put it to use!

I've carved out some time this weekend to go on a cookie-baking spree and use up some of the weird odds and ends in my pantry; one of the things I've got is a pound of ground hazlenuts that a roommate got at the grocery for me (she picked up as a favor; I'd asked for ground ALMONDS and they didn't have any, so she was trying to make up for it). I'm assuming there's some kind of cookie recipe I can use them for, or use them as a filling for something; any suggestions?

(It doesn't have to be cookies, either. Thanks!)

posted by EmpressCallipygos to food & drink (32 answers total)

Hazelnut almost-flourless chocolate cake!

melt 7oz semisweet chocolate w/one cup butter, let cool
add in 3/4 cup sugar
beat together 4 eggs and 1 1/2 tbsp coffee liqueur, add to chocolate mixture
add in 3/4c ground toasted hazelnut, 1/4c flour, 1 1/2 tbsp ground coffee
pour into 9" cake pan
bake 25min @ 350

Don't overbake.

You can make a ganache, but I think it's overkill.
posted by jeather at 6:49 AM on March 1 [3 favorites]

This hazelnut chocolate Viennese torte is kind of amazing, and will use up a lot of your hazelnuts.
posted by xingcat at 6:51 AM on March 1

Are the hazelnuts part of the odds and ends in the cupboard, or an adjunct picked up for this cookie task? If the former, check and make sure they're not rancid; ground nuts don't last forever.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:56 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Russian Tea Cakes/Mexican Wedding Cakes - you can use most kinds of nuts in these. I have always wanted to make them with hazelnuts. They are actually not a "wedding" cake - they are a variant on a regular mexican cookie called a polvorone, or so I am told. I suspect that polvorones may have been the inspiration for those Keebler "Pecan Sandies".
posted by Frowner at 6:57 AM on March 1

Nigella Lawson makes a flourless clementine cake that calls for quite a lot of ground almonds; I'm sure it would be great with hazelnuts, too. As we head into the end of tiny winter citrus season I often find I have a lot of clementines around so this is a good way to use 'em up.
posted by bcwinters at 7:04 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]

Homemade Nutella is the answer. I've never made it but there are lots of googlable recipes.
posted by something something at 7:04 AM on March 1

Are the hazelnuts part of the odds and ends in the cupboard, or an adjunct picked up for this cookie task?

They are "part of the odds and ends in the cupboard." They're pre-ground, and only a month or so old - they have been in a sealed airtight container all this time.

Adding the data point just in case - ideally seeking recipes that state how much ground nutmeat I will need. A lot of the recipes I'd seen in my own cookbooks tell me how many WHOLE hazlenuts I would need to put in my food processor, and I don't quite know how that would translate to "already ground nutmeal" quantities. (Unfortunately, Smitten Kitchen's recipe above calls for "1 cup whole nuts finely ground" and I don't know whether that means "1 cup of nut meal" or "1 cup of nuts that you grind down and it comes out to less than a cup" or whatever.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:05 AM on March 1

Although - if anyone knows a good "conversion" for that (i.e., "1 cup of whole nuts = X cups ground nuts") that would help enormously.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:06 AM on March 1

Oh, mine is 3/4c ground, not whole. Sorry.
posted by jeather at 7:09 AM on March 1

No, Jeather, "ground" is what I wanted so you did it right!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:11 AM on March 1

Good point about the ground vs. whole.

I have no specific recipe, but I'd throw some in a pasta with cream sauce. Or use it to dust a chocolate crepe. Or throw it on my oatmeal in the morning. Or in a smoothie.

Sadly, I recently tested positive for hazelnut allergies, so I can only dream.
posted by vitabellosi at 7:11 AM on March 1

Make your own Nutella!
posted by Thorzdad at 7:14 AM on March 1

Nigella Lawson's flourless Nutella cake.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:18 AM on March 1 [2 favorites]

I mean "Sorry I wasn't clear the first time". So, um, sorry I wasn't clear the second time either.

But this is seriously the most delicious cake (if it isn't overbaked). Now I want to make some.
posted by jeather at 7:19 AM on March 1

I actually tried taking another look online with a different search term ("hazelnut meal" rather than "ground hazelnuts") and had some luck anew as well; I'm still using a lot of these suggestions, but may also try....vegetarian haggis.

But do keep the ideas coming, I actually trust "I am someone you know in Metafilter and can vouch for this" suggestions more so than random blog posts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:25 AM on March 1

This sounds kind of weird, but if you're up for improvising (I don't have access to the original recipe) - I have eaten a delicious pasta that included lemon cream sauce, crab meat, and ground/chopped hazelnuts. I believe it was with angel hair pasta, coiled into little nests, and baked.
posted by hungrybruno at 7:33 AM on March 1

If it were December, I'd say make Austrian Vanillekipferl. Yesterday was still February, so close enough, I'd say.
posted by meijusa at 7:53 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]

How about a variation of Mary Todd Lincoln's cake recipe?
posted by plastic_animals at 8:13 AM on March 1

I hate to threadsit, but: reminding people again that if the ingredient list does NOT specifiy "ground hazelnuts," it will not help me.

Mary Todd Lincoln's cake recipe, the homemade nutella, and the Russian tea cakes all call for WHOLE hazelnuts which I then grind up, and I don't know if 1 cup whole nuts = 1 cup ground nuts or whatever. So I thank you for your pains, but I'm still at a loss.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:17 AM on March 1

I love me some Dacquoise. Here's a cookie adaptation, but it looks like a lot of work.
posted by zinon at 8:26 AM on March 1

The cake recipe is pretty forgiving. Having slightly too much or too little hazelnuts won't significantly affect the structure or taste. To be on the safe side use a little less than a cup of the ground hazelnuts.
posted by plastic_animals at 8:28 AM on March 1

I wouldn't go lower on the measure of ground hazelnuts, I would go higher.

Google is all over the place with conversions, but according to the Cake Bible, one cup of whole almonds weighs 125g and a cup of almond meal weighs 90-100g. Whole hazelnuts are heavier than almonds, at 140g a cup; there is no weight provided for hazelnut meal but it stands to reason that it would have a similar ratio. I would tend to trust Rose Levy Beranbaum when it comes to these things and therefore use 1 1/4 - 1 1/3 cups hazelnut meal for every cup of whole hazelnuts called for in a recipe.

Or I would just use a European recipe that is done in grams instead right from the get-go. Yet another example of why it's better to bake by weight than by measure.

(I do agree with plastic_animals that "flourless" recipes that call for nut meals are not going to require QUITE as much care as recipes that use wheat flour and depend on gluten for structure, though.)
posted by bcwinters at 8:39 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]

bcwinters, I don't know why on earth I didn't think of trying to convert "whole-to-ground" by using WEIGHT.

Duh on me. Thank you!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:41 AM on March 1

There's a Dutch cookie recipe that calls for ground hazelnuts - I adore these cookies (assuming they're the ones I used to eat by the box when I was in NL) - rough translation from this recipe replacing vanilla pod for vanilla sugar (which we don't really "do" over here as far as I know):

Hazelnut cookies

makes approx 50 cookies*

Ingredients:
300 grams flour, 100 grams hazelnuts - toasted and ground, 100 grams of sugar, 200 grams soft butter, 1 egg, 1 vanilla pod, powdered sugar for dusting.

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius).

Mix the flour, ground hazelnuts, sugar, butter, egg, contents of vanilla pod, and a pinch of salt in a blender together well until a dough forms. Knead well and form rolls of dough of about 5 to 6 cm. long. Put these cookies into crescents on the baking sheet (lined with parchment paper) and slide in the middle of the oven. Approx. 12-15 minutes until golden and cooked through.

Let the cookies cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

* which is good, because I want about 50 of these right now... :)
posted by pammeke at 9:13 AM on March 1

The financiers in the Bouchon Bakery cookbook call for ground almonds, but I'm sure hazelnuts would work too. MeMail if you'd like me to type up the recipe.
posted by Karmeliet at 9:16 AM on March 1

Dorie Greenspan's Thumbprints For Us Big Guys involve hazelnut meal and tart jam, and are a really nice sophisticated version of thumbprints that aren't too sweet and have a deep, nutty flavor that gets better the longer they sit (I wasn't sold on them as a "make again" thing when I baked them for Christmas last year, but then I had the last few like 4 days later and they had gotten much tastier somehow). They're ideal for tea time as they're crumbly and a bit dry. They're pretty too; they look like this (self FB link).

And yeah vanillekipferl (again, FB selflink so you have an idea of what they look like from a nonpro home baker) and any related kourabiedes/Mexican wedding/Russian teacake cookies are delicious. They were the most popular of my "new to me" holiday cookie spread last Christmas.
posted by ifjuly at 2:14 PM on March 1

I'm glad you got that whole-to-ground hazelnut situation sorted out because Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake. Seriously that cake is SO GOOD. SO VERY VERY GOOD.
posted by grapesaresour at 2:34 PM on March 1

Late to the party, but I would try a baklava. They are usually made with walnuts or pistachios, but hazelnuts sound delicious.
posted by CathyG at 7:44 PM on March 4

I riff on this chocolate nutella turnover recipe a fair amount. Throw some of the ground hazelnuts inside with the paste, and sprinkle on top.

The New York Times had this carrots and scallions recipe the other day that calls for ground hazelnuts.

This is another infinitely modifiable recipe, if you like chocolate and dried fruit with your nuts, and who doesn't?

I've been meaning to make this fig tart for a while. I think a colleague did. Will ask.
posted by knile at 1:19 AM on March 6

I only marked this "resolved" because the weekend I was going to bake came and went, but I still have PUH-LENTY of hazelnut meal left over and will definitely be coming back. (I ended up making a couple different cookies, but they're gonna go fast and I've got plenty of hazelnut meal left over.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:11 AM on March 6

So what I mean is, feel free to keep 'em coming.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:11 AM on March 6

I make a Hazelnut Dacquoise similar to this recipe for work--you don't need the fancy molds to pipe in, just pipe a long rectangle onto a pan lined with parchment paper and sprayed with Pam, etc. Bake until golden and springy to the touch.

I'd let it cool completely, then toss in the freezer--pan and all--for half an hour before cutting in half, spreading on a nice layer of Nutella buttercream on one piece and topping it with the remaining piece. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour before cutting with a warm knife.

Garnish the top with a sprinkle of cocoa powder and/or chopped toasted hazelnuts if you're feeling extra fancy.

p.s. You're making a fussy French desert, damn right you're feeling fancy. Garnish that shit.
posted by nenequesadilla at 5:19 PM on March 7