hazelnut

Cranberry and Hazelnut Muffins

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Trapped at home on rainy miserable Saturday with a shitty cold I wanted something sweet but couldn’t face going out and having change out of my oodie (if don’t have one yet, get one they are fantastic in cold weather (I’m not advertising, but if any oodie makers would like to send me one I wouldn’t say no).

Anyway, after raiding the cupboards this is  what I came up with and they were delicious. I used Greek yoghurt because I has some that needed to be used up but could also use milk instead.  If you’re lactose intolerant you could swap the dairy for the same volume of stewed apple or mashed banana.  I’d also recommend toasting the hazelnuts in a dry pan first.  Its not mission critical if you’re pushed for time (or just can’t be arsed) but it does make them even tastier.

Makes 12

Ingredients

200 Grams Self raising flour (or 200 Grams of plain flour qnd 2 teaspoons of bsking powder if you don’t have self raising flour)

100 Grams Sugar

2 Eggs

200 Grams Yoghurt

50 Grams Hazelnuts

50 Grams Dried cranberries

100mil Oil or Melted butter

Method

  • Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and line a muffin tin with muffin cases
  • Add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl
  • Mix all the wet ingredients together and mix well until fully combined
  • Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well making sure that the fruit and nuts are evenly distributed throughout the batter
  • If you have one of those fancy ice cream scoops you can use it to evenly distribute the batter into the muffin cases.  I dont have one. So I just used 2 dessert spoons to scoop and then scrape the batter in the cases.
  • Bske for 20-25 minutes and allow to cool.

‘El Bulli’ Bean Soup with Picada

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El Bulli was one of the most famous 3 Michelin star restaurants in the world.  I don’t claim this was what they served their customers, but apparently they would provide a 3 course meal for staff each day, and this is one of those dishes.

Anyone who’s ever worked in fancy restaurants will you the traditional staff meal can often be a bit ropey to say the least (I worked in a place once that only ever fed us cheap and nasty chicken nuggets).  A cook book based around El Bulli’s staff meals has actually been published called The Family Meal (dropping hints ahead of Christmas, just in case Santa is reading this)

It’s good to see El Bulli fed their staff well, and while it isn’t an extravagant dish, it’s delicious.  The thing that takes it to another level is the Picada (a Catalan version of pesto, made with hazelnuts and parsley).

Do yourself a favour and try to buy ready blanched hazelnuts, it will save a lot of time and effort.

Ingredients

For the soup

1 Onion (finely chopped)

1 Tbsp Oil

1 Clove garlic (finely chopped)

2 x 400 Gram Tins of cannellini beans

1 Litre Vegetable Stock (I used a 2 x stock cubes)

400 Mil Carton of Passata

1 Tsp Rosemary (Finely chopped)

1 Sprig of Thyme (or 1/2 Tsp of dried Thyme)

Salt and Pepper to taste

For the Picada

1 x Large punch of parsley or couple of handfuls (roughly chopped)

1-2 Cloves of garlic

75 Grams Hazelnuts (try to buy the pre-blanched one, as removing the skins is a pain in the a*se)

50-75 Mil Olive oil, (or more if you want the Picada to be looser)

1/2 Tsp Salt

Serves 4

Method

  • For the soup, heat the oil in a large pot, and add the onion and cook over a medium heat until it becomes translucent, add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes before adding the rest of the soup ingredients to the pot.  Simmer for over a low heat for 20 minutes.
  • While the soup is cooking you can make the picada.  If you haven’t been able to find ready blanched hazelnuts, heat the nuts in a frying pan until they smell nutty (I know this sounds weird but when you can smell the nut smell it means they are ready),  Transfer the toasted nuts onto the centre of a clean tea towel, bring the edges together and roll the nuts within the towel until the papery outer layer comes away
  • If you have more sense than I did and have bought hazelnuts without skins, add these to a food processer and pulse a couple of times until the nuts have broken up.  Add the rest of the picada ingredients to the food processer and blitz until you have a bright green paste.  I like mine quite chunky and rustic, but you can whizz it up until you get a super smooth paste if that’s your thing. 
  • Transfer the picada to a bowl and wipe the food processer, and you will be ready to transfer half the soup to the food processer and whizz until smooth before returning to the pot and stirring well.  This helps to thicken the soup
  • Add half the picada to the soup and stir well, before serving in large bowls.  Spoon a dollop of the picada in the centre of each bowl, serve crusty bread for a simple but delicious meal.

Baked Feta with a Hazelnut Crust

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I love super simple recipes, that don’t require dozens of ingredients or loads of time.

This is really simple and delicious and is perfect as a lunch to share or as a sharing starter. You can cut the feta into smaller pieces if you prefer to make these single serving.

The hazelnuts should be kept fairly chunky (I crushed these in a mug with the base of a rolling pin to stop them rolling all over a cutting board). I also like a light drizzle of honey at the end, as I think its a nice contrast against the saltiness of the feta, serve it with salad and some crusty bread.

Ingredients

200 Gram Feta/Greek salad cheese

40 Grams Hazlenuts

4-5 Sprigs Thyme/1/2 Tsp Dried thyme

1 Tbsp Oil

1 Tbsp Honey (Optional)

Method

  1. Take the cheese out of the fridge about 30 minutes before your plan to bake it (if you forget to do this its no biggy), pat dry with kitchen paper and rub with the oil. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees (Celsius)
  2. Coat both sides of the cheese with the crushed hazelnuts and thyme, move to an oven proof dish and bake for 20 minutes or until the hazelnuts and toasted and brown
  3. Remove from the oven and drizzle with honey (if honey isn’t your thing don’t worry it will still be delicious)

Hazelnut and Raspberry Eton Mess

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Chewy meringue, luscious cream, and juicy raspberries

Most of my baking is throw it in a bowl give a quick stir and throw it in the oven. Every now and again I like to go a little bit fancier, not as fancy as those creations you see in French patisseries that are total works of art, but a bit more involved than a tray bake.

As with some of my favourite recipes this came together as the result of an accident. I was in a supermarket and meant to lift ground almonds but lifted ground hazelnuts instead. If you can’t find ground hazelnuts, just give whole hazelnuts a whiz in the food processor, just don’t go too fine with them or else the hazelnuts will start to release their natural oils which is death for a meringue. I used raspberries in this, but oranges or strawberries also go really well.

I’ll be honest, I was trying to make pretty frou frou little meringue nests. It went horribly wrong (I have a checkered past with meringue and it beat me once again. I think I need one those beautiful very expensive mixers, just saying in case anyone would like to send one to the Sunnyside Kitchen and break my meringue curse). If you are better with meringues than I am please give the little nests a try I think they would look adorable.

My meringue nests didn’t really work out.

So I had a pile of ugly meringues, and rather than waste these I just adapted what I had and layered broken meringue, cream, chocolate and fruit to make a version of Eton mess, it tasted fabulous! This is also a fantastic gluten free dessert.

I like to think of cooking as a metaphor for life, sometimes you end up with something you didn’t want or didn’t ask for. Sometimes things don’t work out as you hoped or planned. But with a little imagination and the right attitude you can still create something great.

Served in little jars or glasses these make a delicious dessert.

Ingredients

Meringue

150 Grams Hazelnuts (ground)

7 Eggs whites

385 Grams Caster sugar (if you don’t have caster sugar, whiz ordinary granulated sugar in a food processor of a couple of seconds)

1/2 Tsp White wine vinegar

Filling

100 Grams Chocolate (use the the type you prefer and grate or scrap into curls

1 Punnet of raspberries

250 Ml Whipped Cream

Method

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees, line two baking sheets with baking parchment, drawing on circles (if making meringue nests)
  2. Separate your eggs and whisk the egg whites until they resemble stiff peaks, whisk in the sugar a tablespoon at time and then add the vinegar.
  3. Gradually fold in the ground hazelnuts with a metal spoon, and then pipe or spoon onto the prepared baking trays
  4. Bake for 25-30 mins and remove and allow cool before carefully removing from the baking parchment
  5. When the meringue are completely cold, start to layer them up with the whipped cream, prepared fruit and grated chocolate. I use little jam jars, but these also look really good served in tall glasses. If you have any whole hazelnuts left you could also toast these in a pan and allow them to cool before topping the desserts to give some crunch