Baking at Home: Hazelnut Cookies

As this past Easter weekend approached, my mood to bake was in full swing. Now was a great time to make use of a tub of hazelnuts. That's right, mmm hazelnuts.

My mom recommended I check out her baking book collection, particularly Gina DePalma's Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen.  From its opening, Batali hand-picked her to be the pastry chef.  So, yes, that Babbo.

The hazelnut recipes had a great selection of biscottis, chocolate hazelnut cookies, and a plain hazelnut cookie.  I wanted the hazelnuts to shine, so I chose the Hazelnut Cookie recipe (this is a blog that writes up DePalma's recipe).

I made two batches.  One is as the recipe dictates, with just a gentle coating of confectioners' sugar.  I also left the hazelnut skins on.  I love the homemade, speckled look; and the skins really don't give off any bitterness to distract from the nut's flavor.  These cookies turned out really great - chewy, crispy, and intense sweet hazelnut.

The second batch was coated with more confectioners' sugar, flattened, and twice baked - Hazelnut Biscotti Cookies.  They are perfect dipped in my daily cup of Americano.

I'm inspired to tweak this recipe into my own now.  Maybe lessen the sugar and bake it a little less for more chewiness.  I'm also curious to try it flour-less and/or egg yolk-less.  I'll keep you posted when I try out these new batches..

If you can't see the slide show, check out my Flickr album: Hazelnut Cookies