Tags
almond paste, Florence Knight, hazelnut, hazelnuts, pears, praline
I really like this book. One – A cook and her cupboard – Florence Knight. I’m not totally sure why. I like the simple recipes and lovely flavours.
It inspired me to try something traditional with my hazelnuts, so I can learn a formal technique and make a tart that was new.
I’m not too sure it worked out but it was a really good exercise and a good basis for further experimentation.
I had made a small amount of almond paste (equal weight of almonds freshly ground and icing sugar with some egg white) and wondered how other nut pastes are used. In the back of my mind I had remembered that I had seen some chestnuts somewhere and these two thoughts combined in my small adled brain and niggled me. See I had a very very awful pile of work to do had been running around having interviews and I couldn’t think at all! So after investigating chestnut puree and various cakes and puddings I went and purchased some hazelnuts! So scrap the chestnuts for now. What do you make out of hazelnuts? Well apparently hazelnut praline paste so that was the start.
I found out while playing with hazelnuts that they are little gits when it comes to removing the skins. I tried roasting and this was a complete pain and ended up boiling them up for 5 mins in water and fiddling with them for a while to remove the skins.
Ingredients
200g hazelnut
100g white sugar
1. Add the sugar into a saucepan and bring to boil on a medium heat.
2. The sugar will dissolve and caramelise after few minutes.
3. So when a lovely caramel is formed take off the hob and add the hazelnuts and stir.
4. Pour the mixture onto a baking paper sheet and leave to solidify.
5. Once totally cold add the caramelised hazelnuts to a food processor and wizz them up.
6. Mix until a paste forms, add a few drops of water if the mixture needs help becoming a paste.
So I have a lump of hazelnut praline now what!
Florence Knight has what looks like a beautiful maple custard tart, so I make this with hazelnut praline and pear instead of maple syrup.
Where the recipe says to add 330ml of maple syrup I added an equivalent pile of sweet caramlised hazelnut paste, I layered some of the hazelnut praline and thin slices of pear in the pastry case before adding the hazelnut egg mixture.
The verdict was mixed. The taste was rather muted and fragrant not for those with a real sweet tooth. One person said it got better with each mouth full, the other that it was a little grainy. I quite liked it, but it does need more work.
Caramelised hazelnuts
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