Day 8 Of The Rosiethon. Rosie Makes Hazelnut Truffles.

 

Rosie is making Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles today.

This is another favorite of mine.
It consists of a hazelnut base with a deep chocolate ganache topping.

It's intense chocolate, but not overly sweet,

and it's studded with toasted hazelnuts.

Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles

softened, unsalted butter for coating the pan

cocoa powder for dusting

For hazelnut base:

1 cup hazelnuts, toasted

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

1/2 stick unsalted butter

6-oz. bittersweet chocolate

2 large whole eggs

For ganache: 
2 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/8 tsp Kosher salt
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Make hazelnut base:
Heat oven to 350°.

Butter bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan.
Dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess.

Finely grind nuts with flour, sugar, and salt.

Melt butter in 2-qt saucepan.
Remove from heat.
Add chocolate and whisk until smooth.
Add eggs 1 at a time, whisking until smooth.
Stir in nut flour until just combined.

Spread batter evenly in baking pan and bake 15-20,
or until a tester comes out with crumbs adhering.
Cool completely in pan on a rack.

Make ganache: 
Lightly beat yolks in a bowl until light lemon color.
Bring cream and salt just to a boil.
Drizzle half of cream into yolks,
whisking constantly.
Whisk yolk mixture into remaining cream and return to heat.
Cook over low heat, whisking, until slightly thickened
until an instant-read thermometer registers 170°.

Remove from heat and add chocolate, whisking until smooth.
Pour ganache over hazelnut base,
smoothing with offset spatula.
Chill, covered, until firm, at least 5 hours.
Cut into small squares.

Hazelnut, flour, and sugar mixture.

Action shot!

Whisky.  Whisky.

Use plastic and a mini rolling pin to even out the hazelnut base.

Use an offset spatula to clean up the edges.

Ingredients for the ganache.

Day 8 Of The Rosiethon. Rosie Makes Mounds Bars®.

 This is Rosie's version of a Mounds Bar®.

 

When I Googled Mounds Bars,

most of the copy-cat recipes called for paraffin.

I'm ain't eatin' no paraffin.
Eating hydrocarbons is not appealing to me.

Paraffin contains the following chemicals:

acrolein, benzene, ethanol, formaldehyde,

dibutyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, toluene,

styrene, benzene, ethyl benzene, napthalene,

benzaldehyde, didecyl phthalate, and acetone.

I know! I know!

What's not to love?

I'm using Mr. Hawthorne's sourwood honey

and its comb instead of the evil paraffin..

Gives a lovely sheen and flavor to the chocolate.

 Rosie's Mounds

1 14-oz. package flaked coconut

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2-4 oz. boxes sweet chocolate

1/2 cup sourwood honey with comb

Combine coconut and condensed milk.

Mix well.

Wet hands and form coconut mixture into small, tight logs.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Melt chocolate and honey.

Dip or pour over coconut logs.

Refrigerate to set,

then dip opposite side.

Refrigerate to set.

Yes, I know.

I'm a messy chocolatier.

Day 7 Of The Rosiethon. Rosie Makes Samoas.

 

 Today, I'm making Samoas.

Samoas start out with a shortbread cookie base,

then a topping of caramel and toasted coconut,

with chocolate drizzled over top.

Samoas

Shortbread

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 TB cream

Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Slowly add this to the butter mixture.

At low speed, add in the cream and vanilla.

Separate the dough into halves and wrap in plastic.

Refrigerate for an hour.

Roll dough out 1/8-1/4 inch thick

and cut out with two different-sized round cutters.

Bake at 350° for about 12 minutes,

rotating the cookie sheet halfway through baking.

I forgot to set the timer on that last batch.

Guess I'll have to eat them.

For the topping: 

3 cups coconut

15 ounces soft caramels

1/4 tsp Kosher salt

3 TB cream

8 ounces dark or semiweet chocolate.

 Toast 3 cups coconut.

 Rosie is lazy.

She didn't make her own caramels.

She's using store-bought.

Gasp!

 I mixed the caramels, salt, and cream

and nuked it.

Stir until smooth.

Now, what you SHOULD do

is dip each shortbread cookie into the melted caramel

and then sprinkle the toasted coconut over top.

Sadly, I followed the directions

which said to mix in the coconut with the caramel.

Do NOT do this.

The mixture is way too heavy to spread on the delicate shortbreads.

 I used dark chocolate,

nuked it,

then zig-zagged over the Samoas.

 

Day 7 Of The Rosiethon. Mocha Toffee Cashew Bars.

 
 I must say:

THIS is one of my FAVORITE Christmas treats!

Mocha Toffee Cashew Bars
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
3 TB instant-espresso powder dissolved in 2 TB boiling water
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup salted roasted cashews, chopped

Heat oven to 350°.

Cream butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer at moderately high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in yolk and vanilla, then gradually add espresso mixture, beating until well combined.  Stir in flour and salt.

Spread batter evenly in an ungreased 10 1/2 by 15 1/2 baking pan and bake in middle of oven until top puffs slightly and sides pull away from edge of pan, about18-20 minutes.  

While base is baking, melt chocolate in a double boiler, stirring occasionally, then remove from heat

Spread chocolate over warm base and immediately sprinkle with cashews.  Cool in pan on rack.  Chill until chocolate is firm, then cut into bars.