Chocolate hazelnut crisps - house beautiful

4 dozen

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
⅔ cup Whole hazelnuts
¾ cup Confectioners' sugar
¼ teaspoon Instant coffee powder (use only fine granules, not crystals)
⅛ teaspoon Salt
1¼ cup All-purpose flour
8 ounces Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate or imported white chocolate, coarsely chopped
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
4½ ounce Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Solid shortening (reduce to 1 1/2 t if white chocolate is used)

Directions

COOKIE DOUGH

DIPPING CHOCOLATE

In a shallow baking pan in a preheated 325'F oven, toast hazelnuts 16 to 18 minutes, or until hulls begin to loosen and nuts are slightly colored and fragrant. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, remove hulls by vigorously rubbing a handful at a time between your palms or in a clean dish towel. (Some skin may remain on hazelnuts, but they should be free of hull.) In a food processor process hazelnuts, confectioners' sugar, coffee and salt until nuts are ground to a powder. Add flour and process until well mixed. Sprinkle butter over the flour mixture and pulse until mixture resembles fine crumbs.

In the top of a double boiler, melt chocolate until smooth. Let cool, just until slightly warm. Add cooled chocolate and vanilla to butter mixture and pulse until ingredients are blended and hold together.

Shape dough into a disk and knead briefly to distribute chocolate evenly. Divide dough in half and place each portion between sheets of waxed paper. Using a rolling pin, roll out ⅛ inch thick. Stack on a baking sheet and chill 10 minutes, or until dough is firm.

Working with 1 dough sheet at a time, carefully peel the bottom sheet of waxed paper, then replace it loosely. Turn dough over and remove and discard top sheet of waxed paper. Cut out cookies with a 2½-inch scalloped round cookie cutter. Transfer cookies to greased baking sheets, spacing about 1 inch apart.

Bake in center of a preheated 325'F oven 8 to 10 minutes, or until cookies are almost firm to the touch. (They will puff up slightly during baking, then fall again.) Remove from oven and let stand 1 minute. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Prepare dipping chocolate: In the top of a double boiler, melt chocolate, stirring until smooth; remove from heat. With the pan tipped so that the chocolate pools on 1 side, gently dip each cookie so that the mixture covers only half of the top. Gently scrape the underside of each cookie against the pan edge to remove any excess chocolate, then return to wire rack set over waxed paper. (If the chocolate begins to cool and stiffen as you work, rewarm it slightly.) Let the cookies stand until the chocolate sets, about 45 minutes.

Store plain crisps in an airtight container or freeze up to 1 month.

Dipped cookies should be refrigerated in an airtight container with waxed paper between the layers for up to 5 days. (After that, chocolate on the top will begin to discolor.) Makes about 4 dozen 2 ¼-inch cook- ies.

House Beautiful Holidays 1993 Scanned & fixed by Di & Gary

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