My kind of (Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse) Tart

This is my kind of tart. Hazelnuts, chocolate, cream cheese, praline. Could there be a better combination?

Hazelnut and chocolate are one of my favourite food matches. In this tart it's combined richly but not excessively sweetly with a creamy cheesecake-type filling and topped with a chocolate Frangelico ganache. It is absolutely delicious and not at all tricky or time consuming (I know! Hard to believe, huh?).

This recipe calls for shop-bought hazelnut praline paste. I have never heard of or seen such a thing (that I can remember) so I made some praline and added in a bit of oil to make it into a paste, as Rose suggested. (Yes I made toffee and it went fine.)

I had a moment of panic in my local small supermarket when I thought they were out of blanched hazelnuts. Lucky I found the last lonely packet on the shelf. Let's hope they stock up again. Otherwise future projects will be made with hazelnuts with skins because there is no way I'm standing over a pot of boiling hazelnuts. I have my limits.

Actually I needed more than one packet but I manage to eek it out to make enough praline for the tart base and the mousse filling. 

I was surprised that the base worked so well since the mixture turned out so wet. It seemed pretty unlikely that I'd be able to press it into the tart tin smoothly but, lo and behold, it worked! I was just congratulating myself (well the cat doesn't provide much positive reinforcement) when I noticed that some of the sugar in the small processor bowl had whizzed itself out into the big bowl during the base whizzing procedure. It was quite a lot. Damn. I gingerly peeled off the gladwrap, sprinkled the recalcitrant sugar over the base and sort of massaged it in with a fork. I could have taken out the mixture, mixed it in properly and put it back but somehow that didn't seem like an attractive option... 

Amazingly it seemed to be okay. The gods of cooking were feeling kind that day.

After last week's mediocre efforts I tested the oven and found the heat was fluctuating. I monitored the heat while I baked the base and it may have overcooked a little on the sides but it was mostly fine. It's quite an unusual base - a wet mixture, a cakey texture when baked, and then you press it down to compact the puffiness. 

The mousse filling was so ridiculously easy to mix I even had the energy to put the beater blades in the fridge to cool before whipping the cream.

Mmmm, looks delicious. I wonder how it'll taste? And, more to the point, I wonder why the Frangelico bottle is wearing that rather snazzy rope belt? Does everyone's Frangelico bottle sport the same natty (knotty) nautical style?

I didn't make the chocolate ganache by Rose's exacting and probably superior method. Instead I blasted the chocolate and cream at intervals in the microwave and stirred. It looked pretty good. And anyway there was Frangelico.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Coconut Cupcakes with milk chocolate ganache.

The start of Christmas baking? Hazelnut praline cookies

The Alpha Bakers are making biscuits this week - Hazelnut Praline Cookies to be exact. I have to be honest, baking biscuits doesn't excite me too much unless it's directly associated with Christmas. (Because everything to do with Christmas is more fun.) I'm always happy to eat biscuits, of course. 

There's not a lot for me to complain about with these biscuits though. They were quick and easy to make as long as you don't fluff the toffee making (not this time) and factor in refrigerator time. Actually I find time required for cooling or rising often makes it easier to fit baking around the rest of my life.

It's impossible not to like biscuits which are made up of three quarters praline. I may have cooked the first batch a bit too long since I found them a little bit too dry. I have some more dough in the fridge so I'll try cooking the next biscuits for less than 15 minutes. I think shorter baking time would bring out the flavour of the praline more. And if I considered making these for Christmas I might go to the trouble of half dipping them in chocolate to really fancy them up.

I enjoyed this recipe also because I got to use one of my favourite kitchen equipment purchases for the year. (I keep meaning to do a round up post on all my new stuff - maybe at the end of the year I'll get to it.) Rose's penchant for minuscule measurements (2/18ths of a teaspoon anyone?) meant I was in need of extra measuring spoons. I found a set which measure amounts such as a tad, a smidgen and a pinch (1/16th) which I used for the salt in this recipe.

Oh, I didn't mention that you're meant to spend time boiling and skinning the large amount of hazelnuts in this recipe. If I had had to do that there would be a lot more complaining in this post. As it was I found some blanched hazelnuts at my local shop (luckily they don't realise I would be willing to pay almost any price for them). I managed to make a small amount of toffee without incident, to pour onto the toasted hazelnuts to make the praline. The praline was so delicious I ate a shameful amount of the unused portion with a spoon.

It was simple to mix the biscuit dough ingredients up to a wet paste, which firmed up in the fridge.

The biscuit dough was very forgiving, even in the heat (ha, bet you thought I wasn't going to mention the weather this week). I much prefer rolling little balls than rolling out dough and cutting shapes - it's so much less stressful. I also prefer it because I never weigh the individual balls of dough even though this is suggested by Rose. I like to think hell will freeze over before I find myself weighing tiny pieces of dough but I guess you never know what another year with Rose and the Alpha Bakers will bring.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Pumpkin Pecan Pie which is very timely for our US contingent celebrating Thanksgiving.