I love gianduja and wish that it was more readily available at reasonable prices in this country. When I saw Edd Kimber's recipe for "Gianduja Blondies" in One Tin Bakes, I added them to my to-bake list immediately. The bars don't actually call for gianduja, but instead incorporate gianduja's components: milk chocolate and hazelnuts. I love hazelnuts so much that I went ahead to spring for some hazelnut butter to use in the recipe, even though Kimber says that almond butter or even extra unsalted butter will work as well.
The recipe comes together quickly. You brown butter and let it cool slightly; whisk in brown sugar, eggs, egg yolks, hazelnut butter, and vanilla; and incorporate flour, baking powder, salt, milk chocolate (I used Guittard milk chocolate chips), and chopped hazelnuts. I was feeling lazy and instead of chopping the hazelnuts with a knife, I threw them into a Ziploc bag and bashed them with a rolling pin to break them up a bit. I transferred the batter to a parchment-lined pan and then scattered some reserved milk chocolate and hazelnuts on top before baking.
These bars are one of my favorite recipes from Edd's cookbook so far. The blondie is dense and not too sweet with a rich caramel-y flavor, and the combination of milk chocolate and hazelnuts really does evoke gianduja. For me the defining characteristic of these bars was the abundance of crunchy hazelnuts. I'm glad that my lazy way of breaking up the nuts yielded some very large pieces, because each bite was satisfyingly full of big shards of hazelnuts. This is just a terrific hazelnut-centric dessert.
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