February recipe: cobnut cookies
Cobnut cookies. Photo: Jemima Roberts
Cobnuts are a variety of hazelnut, I spotted these at market back in the autumn, says Jemima Roberts. I still have some and other nuts-in-shells too, leftover from Christmas.
I confess I like the ring of ‘cobnut cookies’: a bit less pedestrian than ‘hazelnut cookies’, but of course, regular hazelnuts can be used. Indeed, many of the hazelnuts sourced from Britain are in fact Kentish Cob.
These cookies are a quirky, less predictable alternative to the ubiquity of the ‘brown stuff’ at this time of year. They are less gregarious and feisty than the kick of cocoa, but subtlety offers subterfuge: these cookies are very tasty indeed. So, go forth and seduce with surprise…
Cobnut Cookies
(Makes about 20 cookies)
6oz/150g white spelt flour (Spelt flour offers a further ‘nutty’ depth to this recipe, with the additional bonus of being softer on sensitive-to-gluten tummies)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4oz/100g butter
4oz/100g hazelnut butter/spread
5oz/100g sugar
3oz/75g crystallised ginger
3oz/75g cobnuts or hazelnuts
1tsp vanilla essence
1 egg – optional (I have made them with/without egg, using an egg means the mixture binds slightly better and the end result is crisper.)
Pre-heat oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5.
Shell the nuts.
Line a large baking sheet (I actually use my grill pan as it is the perfect size to fit the whole shelf in the oven) with greaseproof/parchment, cut a small knob from a lump of fridge-hard butter. Smear it thinly over the paper.
Sprinkle some flour over the top and tilt the sheet at a steep angle and gently bash the tray. This should encourage the excess flour to ‘pool’ and just a thin coating the butter.
Pour the excess into mixing bowl with the rest of the flour when you get to that stage.
Cream together sugar and butter. Add hazelnut butter and cream-in.
If using one, beat the egg in a jug and fold into the creamed mixture together with the vanilla essence.
Sieve the flour and bicarbonate of soda over the mixing bowl and fold in with a wooden spoon.
Chop up the crystallised ginger into small chunks. Stir in.
Rough-chop the cobnuts and stir in.
Break off gob-stopper sized balls of mixture and gently pat into ‘pillows’. Criss-cross with a fork imprint on the top.
Arrange on the tray with 1-1.5 inch space between.
Cook on medium rack in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until just gilting at the edges and lightly coloured on top.
The cookies will be very fragile and crumbly when they come out, to the extent that you might think they aren’t cooked.
Rest assured that they are, the high nut content means that until cool, they won’t hold together so well but they are all the better for it.
Related:
January recipe: Celery and walnut soup with blue cheese croutons
December recipe: mushroom and chestnut roast with cashew cream