Hazelnut/Praline Paste
2024-09-07
Nuts in general are a popular snack in the US, but for some reason I found that hazelnuts are quite difficult to find. So I ordered a bunch online and froze them. Problem solved.
I wanted to make some kind of cake with hazelnuts and chocolate, so I looked that up and most of them were actually using hazelnut paste.
It's not completely trivial to make, but it's not that hard either. Just don't burn the caramel!
It makes a good amount (see pictures). I'm not sure how I'll use it except for that cake, but it's also delicious. It could probably be used as very rich spread.
Ingredients
- 300 g raw hazelnuts
- 225 g granulated sugar
- 3 tbsp water
- 2-3 tsp optional oil
- half tsp salt
Special equipment
Food processor: you need a good enough one to blend the shit out of it to turn it into a paste, I don't think you can do that recipe without one.
Steps
Roasted hazelnuts
1. In a skillet or a frying pan roast the hazelnuts on medium-high heat.
2. Try to turn them often.
3. When they're getting darker - not too burnt - in about 10 min, put them in a clean dish towel.
4. Close the towel and rub the hazelnuts together inside to remove as much skin as possible.
5. Put the nuts without the skin in a bowl
Caramel
Note: the caramel will be blended, so it doesn't have to be best looking caramel of your life.
0. Prep a baking tray with a silicon sheet or parchment paper to spread the caramel on. It should fit in your fridge.
1. Put the water in a small saucepan
2. Turn the heat on medium-high
3. Add the sugar immediately
4. Stir to dissolve the sugar
5. It'll start bubbling, that's normal. Continue to slowly stir. Not too much so the heat can build up.
6. After 5–10 minutes it'll start to take a yellow color. From there be careful not to burn it!
7. Once it gets more orange and starts to smell like caramel, pour it on the baking tray.
8. Put the tray in the fridge for half an hour.
Paste
1. Break the caramel in a million pieces and put them with the hazelnuts in the food processor.
2. BLEND EVERYTHING! Until it turns into a thick and liquid-ish paste.
3. It will take a little (like 10 minutes) while to turn it into a paste. So do not hesitate to take breaks to let the motor cool down, and manually stir everything and remove piece stuck on the side.
4. If it still looks like dust instead of a paste, add one teaspoon of vegetable oil.
5. Rinse and repeat until you get a satisfying result, up to 3 teaspoons.
I used 1 teaspoon of oil to help the process on this first attempt.
Pictures
Note that it was completely full with the recipe quantities. I used 80g already and it flattened overnight.
