Tag Archives: hazelnuts

Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

I have not been shy about my love for the The Oh She Glows Cookbook: Over 100 Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out cookbook.  Every thing I have made from it has been absolutely delicious  so when it came time for me to host book club, I knew exactly where I was going to search for a recipe to serve for dessert.

Finished pie.

Finished pie.

Our book club is fairly simple and until the last meeting not very focused on the book.  If you are the hostess, you are responsible for choosing the book and serving wine and dessert.  Until the last book club, we did not spend much time actually discussing the books we had read.  Most of our time was spent drinking wine and talking about what was going on in each other’s lives.  However, with this meeting, we decided the hostess would be responsible for having some questions about the book to help spark discussion.

I choose Me Before You: A Novel by JoJo Moyes and printed off a list of questions from the web.  This book turned out to be a great choice for our first meeting with questions.   It themes were so universal that even the people who had not read the book were able to participate in the conversation.  It sparked a lot of conversation about how you live your life and the choices you might make around death.  I highly recommend this book.

In the original The Oh She Glows Cookbook recipe, it calls for espresso powder to be used in the filling.  I was out of espresso powder so I decided to omit it from the recipe.  I am sure it would be super tasty with the espresso powder but I thought it was very yummy and decadent without it.  Even though this dessert is dairy and gluten free, it still wowed everyone at book club. It does, however,  take a bit of planning because you need to soak the cashews for at least 4 hours (and overnight is even better) before you can make the filling.  This planning is well worth the end result!!

Some of the yummy ingredients that make up this torte.

Some of the yummy ingredients that make up this torte.

To make the crust, you combine the hazelnuts, coconut oil, oats and maple syrup in a food processor and pulse until you get a coarse crumb.  This coarse crumb is then pressed into the bottom of a nine inch round pan and baked for about 10-13 minutes.

Crust before being pressed into the pan.

Crust before being pressed into the pan.

After removing the crust from the oven, allow it to cool before adding the filling.

Crust before baking.

Crust before baking.

I put all the ingredients for the filling in my Nutri Bullet and gave them a whirl.  I had to stop multiple times to scrap down the sides and add a little almond milk.  The Nutri Bullet worked awesome to turn those nuts, chocolate and other ingredients into a smooth, creamy, yummy  filling.

Filling mixture after being blended together.
Filling mixture after being blended together.

 

Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

Ingredients

  • FOR CRUST:
  • 3/4 cup raw hazelnuts
  • 1/4 cup of coconut oil
  • 3 tbs of maple syrup
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1/2 cup gluten free oat flour
  • 1 cup gluten free rolled oats
  • FOR CHOCOLATE FILLING:
  • 1 1/2 cups of cashews soaked overnight or at least 4 hours
  • 2/3 cup of agave or maple syrup (I used maple)
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/3 cup cacao powder
  • 1/3 cup of melted dark chocolate chips
  • 2 tsp of vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp of sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp of espresso powder (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 9 inch pie dish with coconut oil.
  2. TO MAKE CRUST:
  3. In food processor, grind the hazelnuts into a coarse crumb.
  4. Add the maple syrup, oat flour, salt and coconut oil until the dough starts to stick together.
  5. Add oats and process until begin to break up but you can still see them.
  6. Press mixture into the pie pan.
  7. Place in oven and bake for 10-13 minutes. (Until lightly brown.)
  8. Allow crust to cool while you make the filling.
  9. TO MAKE FILLING:
  10. Drain and rinse the soaked cashews.
  11. Place cashews and all other filling ingredients in your blender.
  12. Process the filling on high. Stopping to scrap the sides or add almond milk as needed to keep the blender moving.
  13. Once your filling is completely smooth, pour it into the cooled pie crust.
  14. Smooth filling so it evenly covers the crust.
  15. I garnished my pie with shaved dark chocolate and chopped hazelnuts. You can skip the garnish all together or add whatever ingredients appeal to you.
  16. Put uncovered pie in a flat spot in your freezer and freeze for a few hours.
  17. After a few hours, cover pie with foil and freeze for a minimum of 4-6 hours before serving.
  18. When ready to serve, remove pie from freezer about 10 minutes before slicing.
  19. To store pie, cut in individual slices, wrap in foil and keep in the freezer.
  20. Enjoy!
http://www.nourishedrootspdx.com/blog/chocolate-hazelnut-torte/

Pie slice.

Pie slice.

This pie is really very pretty sliced.  (I know this pictured doesn’t do it justice.)  Unfortunately, my kids got a hold of the pie before I could cut a nice slice and take a picture of it.  Just one more piece of evidence about how delectable this pie is!

Enjoy!

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Dark Chocolate, Cherry and Hazelnut Bark

Finished chocolate cherry hazelnut bark.

Finished chocolate cherry hazelnut bark.

As you may have guessed from reading my blog over the last few months, I do love dark chocolate.  In fact, in moderation, it is one of my favorite foods.  I am always thinking about ways to incorporate it into my diet. (Read more about the benefits of dark chocolate here.)  When I was little, my mom use to make candy barks for the holidays.   Her bark involved making an amazingly yummy toffee and then covering it in chocolate.  This seemed like more steps than I was prepared for today so I decided to try a bark that felt a little less complicated.  I already had the four ingredients for this bark in my house so it felt like a no brainer to combine them to make a tasty treat.

Ingredients for yum!

Here are the cherries and nuts all ready to be added to the melted dark chocolate.  I roughly chopped the nuts but you can make them as fine as you want depending on your preference.

Chopped hazelnuts and dried cherries.

Chopped hazelnuts and dried cherries.

Even though I used ingredients I already had in my house, I was so excited because for my birthday, I received a cookbook called Nuts in the Kitchen by Susan Herrmann Loomis with all sorts of recipes about cooking with nuts.  In reading the book, I was intrigued by all the benefits offered by each specific nut.  I live in Oregon whose state nut is the hazelnut.  Hazelnuts are everywhere and so delicious. In her book, Susan points out that hazelnuts “contain some folate (or vitamin B9) which helps the body make new protein and red blood cells…Hazelnuts also contain generous amounts of copper and manganese.”  Dried cherries, one of the other ingredients in this recipe, also provide a good source of copper.  Their tart- sweet taste also offers the benefits of Vitamin A and Vitamin C. (And of course, don’t forget all the benefits of dark chocolate.)  I hesitate to call this bark a candy because there are so many benefits to eating it!!

Finished dark chocolate, cherry and hazelnut bark.

Finished dark chocolate, cherry and hazelnut bark.

Dark Chocolate Cherry and Hazelnut Bark

Ingredients

  • about 6.5-7 oz of dark chocolate
  • short 1/2 cup of hazelnuts, chopped
  • short 1/2 cup of cherries
  • Fresh ground sea salt, optional

Instructions

  1. Melt dark chocolate in double broiler on the stove.
  2. While melting, chop nuts to desired size.
  3. Line pan with parchment paper.
  4. When chocolate finishes melting, fold in cherries and nuts.
  5. Pour chocolate mixture onto parchment cover pan.
  6. Spread mixture across pan.
  7. Grind salt on top if using.
  8. Let sit out for at least 2 hours or until hard.
  9. Break into bite sized pieces.
  10. Enjoy!
http://www.nourishedrootspdx.com/blog/dark-chocolate-cherry-and-hazelnut-bark/

A couple of hints:  This bark was packed with nuts and cherries, if you prefer a higher ratio of chocolate to mix ins, I would either melt more chocolate or reduce the amounts of the cherry and nuts.  Also, next time I make this, I will be a little more generous with the salt.  It is sooo yummy with the sweetness of the chocolate that I think a little more would be nice.

This recipe lends itself to lots of experimentation.  I am already thinking of potential ingredients for the next round.  What are your favorite ingredients in candy?

Post shared with A Glimpse Inside, Homespun Oasis, Gluten Free Homemaker and Live laugh Rowe.

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