Wafer Thin Loveliness: Hazelnut Sticks

I still had some blanched and toasted hazelnuts on hand after making Alice Medrich's Hazelnut Biscotti, so I decided to try another hazelnut recipe from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy: Hazelnut Sticks. I thought that Medrich's Coconut Sticks were outstanding and I quickly became a fan of her easy technique to produce incredibly thin cookie sticks.

This recipe calls for raw hazelnuts, but I had already toasted my nuts (to help dry them out because they were completely soaked after boiling them with baking soda to remove the skins). To make the batter, I pulsed the hazelnuts in the food processor with flour, sugar, and salt. Then I added cold cubed butter and drizzled in vanilla and cold water until the mixture held together when pressed. I made a double batch of dough and packed all of it into a single 10-inch by 5-inch loaf pan lined with parchment.

I chilled the dough overnight before slicing it into thin cookies. I got 70 cookies from my double batch of dough (I would have gotten 70 slices out of a single batch of dough as well; it's just that my double batch yielded taller slices).
The slices baked into attractive, uniform, golden trapezoidal cookies. I loved these as much as I loved the coconut sticks. They were crispy, delicate, lightly sweet, and full of lovely hazelnut flavor. They kept beautifully for the few days that we had leftovers. These cookies were an absolute delight.

Recipe: "Hazelnut Sticks" from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich.

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Comments

Raylene said…
What a gorgeous cookie! Do you think dipping some in milk or dark chocolate would work too?
Thanks, Raylene! I think some chocolate would be nice, especially if you cut the cookies a bit thicker (to make sure that the chocolate doesn't overwhelm the delicate hazelnut flavor)... although come to think of think, a hazelnut stick cookie sandwich with chocolate filling also sounds pretty good!