Chocolate Hazelnut and Raspberry Tartelettes

I love weekends! Especially when Josh is here. He helps me take care of the girls so I have time to bake....come up with different concoctions. Tomorrow will be even better because Josh, James and Alan will all be home! Yay! So I love Nutella...its yummy and dreamy and reminds me of Ferero Rocher (my favorite candy besides Lindor Dark Chocolate Truffles). So I thought hey why don't I combine my two loves. The hazelnut of the Ferero and the smooth ganache of Lindor! Sure I could make my own smooth creamy Nutella but I love cruchy. Peanut butter has to be extra crunchy for me. Would you believe that the freshness really lends itself to a more intense flavor than store bought Nutella? Its like fresh coffee vs coffee that has been sitting around for a while. I cracked the hazelnuts..toasted them (the house smelled wonderful by the way). Course I had to taste test a few of those tasty morsels before I turned it into a spread. Here is a recipe for the homemade crunchy Nutella.

Maman and Gourmand's Crunchy Hazelnut Spread


1 12 oz bag of Hazelnuts in the shell

3 tbs of dessert olive oil (or any oil that you prefer really)

1/3 cup of sugar

4 tbs of cocoa powder

3 tbs of milk


Shell hazelnuts and toast in oven that has been preheated to 400 degree for 10 minutes or until aromatic. Remove skins as best as you can. Place hazelnuts in blender or food processor and pulse for 15 seconds. Pour in olive oil. Pulse another 15 seconds. Use spoon to group up the mixture again. Pour sugar and cocoa powder in then use the spoon to mix it in a bit so that cocoa and sugar don't fly up the sides of blender. Pulse 15 seconds. Pour in milk. Pulse another 15. It now should be desired consistency. Taste test it to make sure its your desired sweetness.







Maman and Gourmand's Whipped Ganache


9 oz of good bittersweet chocolate

1 cup of heavy cream





Chop up chocolate and put in bowl. Heat cream in heavy saucepan on med low until bubbles appear around the rim. DO NOT BOIL. Pour hot cream on chocolate. With wooden spoon stir until mixture becomes dark and shinny. Make sure there aren't any chocolate chunks on the bottom. Pour ganache into stand mixer's bowl. I usually put frozen veggies around the base of the bowl to help cool it. (Speeds up the process). Gradually increase the speed until medium high. Now go balance your check book...just kidding. It takes a little bit but eventually the dark mixture will turn lighter and thicker. You want to get it to the point where stiff peaks form when you pull out your whisk attachment. It will be viscous but workable in a pastry bag. This makes one heck of filling for a cake or frosting or frozen treat.


Maman and Gourmand's Chocolate Shortbread Tartelettes


10 Tbs of unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup of flour

2/3 cup of powdered sugar

1/3 cup of cocoa powder

pinch of salt


Ok. This is real simple. Place all ingredients in a bowl and smoosh it with your hand until it forms a ball. Use to fill tartelette shells. Make sure you put some pie beads or dry beans in the shells so they don't bubble up when you bake them. Bake shells in a preheated oven of 325 for 15 minutes. Allow shells to cool in pan. Place in freezer for 5 to 10 minutes to harden (I'm trying to make sure they don't break in case you don't have tartelette pans with removable bottoms). Then dip each tartlette in hot water breifly. Loosen tartelettes gently with a small knife. Freeze again for 3 minutes. They are ready to be filled.







So what I did was I filled the bottom part with the hazelnut spread then the ganache. Topped it with fresh raspberries and gentle sprinkle of powdered sugar. These are divine!


In other news we had a visitor in our house today. A mouse in our house! This happens once in a while when there is a cold snap. This fella was just hanging out. He wasn't scared at all. So I was able catch him and let him out across the street. We named him Xiavier...because he looks like one. The boys didn't want to let him go....I didn't either but we had to.