Travels with George and Marta

It is time for Sunday Slow Bakers. We are a group of bakers from Slow Travel who are baking and blogging together each Sunday. The group was organized by Krista and this is our eighth bake.

Today’s bake is the Bittersweet Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies from Dolce Italiano selected by me! I wanted to make another cookie. I chose chocolate because G loves chocolate.

Chocolate and Hazelnut, this is my favorite combination. I love the chocolate pralines candies from Belgium. One of my favorite chocolates from Italy is Baci – chocolate with a hazelnut in the center. It is also one of my favorite gelato flavors.

I’ve made a chocolate crinkle cookie that sounded similar and I expected these would be similar but they are not. These are more dense and drier. The cookies didn’t raise and crack as much as I expected. I used Lindt 70% chocolate along with Felchlin cocoa. The cookies actually are a bit too chocolate for me. I should have used a bit less intense chocolate since the Felchlin is very dark and strong.

Start by mixing the flour and cocoa together. Chop the hazelnuts medium-fine in a food processor. I lightly roasted them for flavor but I didn’t skin them.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add an egg and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients. The mixture will be very stiff. Don’t over beat but you’ll have to work a bit to combine all the dry ingredients. Chop the bittersweet chocolate finely and add to mixture.

Chill the dough. I was running out of time so I didn’t chill it for a full 30 minutes. Roll into 1″ balls, flatten slightly into a small disk. Roll in powdered sugar and place on cookie sheet. Bake 8-12 minutes until puffed and cracking.

It is time for Sunday Slow Bakers. We are a group of bakers from Slow Travel who are baking and blogging together each Sunday. The group was organized by Krista and this is our eighth bake.

Today’s bake is the Chocolate and Polenta Tart from Dolce Italiano selected by Marcia from Happy Trails For Us: My Reluctant Blog.

Chocolate and polenta, what an unusual combination. This time I needed to chase down instant polenta. I have standard polenta which has a coarse grain. One option would be to use cornmeal but I decided to check Central Market. They had several different polentas by Moretti. Unfortunately I didn’t look up the different options before running to the store. My Italian is not as good as my French so I stood there for a bit mulling over which one might be instant. Fortunately, there is a translation on the package and I decided to go with the lampo which turns out to be the instant.

Next decision was what chocolate to use. There were multiple choices from different countries and even the single plantation chocolate. As luck would have it, there was a chocolate tasting at the store hosted by our local fair trade chocolatier – Theo Chocolates. I discussed what would be a good bittersweet to use to bake and we decided the 75% Cacao which blended chocolates from Ghana, Panama and Ecuador would be good. BTW, if you are looking for a great blog on Chocolate, take a their Theonistas Unite! blog. Hmmm… I just discovered they have tours. I will check them out.

All the ingredients now located, it was not time to start baking. The crust was similar to a shortbread crust except it included a 1/2 cup of polenta. Combine flour, sugar, polenta and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Then add unsalted butter and pulse until it resembles coarse sand. Next combine egg, olive oil and vanilla. Add to the flour/butter mixture and pulse until it comes together in a ball. Refrigerate for 2 hours and then roll into 10″ pan.

That’s when my problems began. I found the dough to be very sticky and I didn’t use enough flour when rolling it. I put down parchment paper to roll it out on and it stuck to the paper and it came apart when I tried to put it in the pan as you can see below. I have better luck when I put soft dough like this into the freezer. It probably would have been good if I had a marble slab for rolling it on. That would have kept it cool. Fortunately, it seems to be somewhat forgiving and I was able to press it into the pan.

Next melt butter and chocolate over hot water. This is the best way to melt chocolate. It stays somewhat cool and doesn’t burn. Beat eggs and sugar until triple in volume. Stir in vanilla and then fold into the chocolate mixture. Sift flour and polenta into the mixture and pour into tart shell. Bake for 25 minutes at 350. Or in my oven’s case – 360.

The taste was gorgeous. It was a little drier than I expect and I would be better served warm. G, my resident chocoholic said – “Yummmm… this will be gone in no time”.

It is time for Sunday Slow Bakers. We are a group of bakers from Slow Travel who are baking and blogging together each Sunday. The group was organized by Krista and this is our sixth bake.

Today’s bake is the Hazelnut and Grape Tart from Dolce Italiano selected by Kim. It is very different from the typical fruit tart.

First make the tart crust. This is a nice dough although rather soft. It does not use water but uses egg and cream. For flavoring, vanilla and lemon rind.

First you beat together the egg yolks and sugar. Add grated orange rind and vanilla. Grind the hazelnuts and sugar in a food processor and add to the yolks. This ends with a stiff batter.

Beat eggs whites with a little sugar until stiff and fold into the egg/nut batter. Spread on over the tart shell.

Cut grapes in half and sprinkle with sugar and grappa or your liquor of choice. Arrange the grapes cut side down in a circular pattern. They are a little bit slippery and sticky so be careful. G felt it looked like a cobblestone mosaic.

Bake until golden and cool. It is very rich and interesting. I think it would be good with a light dollop of whip cream.