HAZELNUT FLOUR
Nutritional data per 100g:
60g fat, 17g carbohydrates, 14g protein Good source of vitamin E, manganese, copper, omega-6 and omega-9 fatty acids PROCESSING
We put the hazelnuts in our drying cupboard for a couple of weeks before using them in the flour trial.
Cracking shells by hand proved tedious. To speed things up, I put the nuts on an old towel on a concrete floor. I folded the towel over the top of the nuts (to prevent flying shards) and tapped them firmly with a hammer, enough to crack the shell. This was very successful, with half a kilogram cracked and sorted much faster than the handheld nutcracker.
From 500g of nuts, we got 185g of hazelnut flesh.
You can blanch the nuts to remove the inner skin, but we didn’t as we wanted to retain their extra indigestible fibre (good for keeping you regular!).
I used our old, hand-turned steel flour grinder to process most of the nut flesh into a coarse meal.
I did the rest in our food processor using a grinding attachment. This resulted in a much finer flour and only took 30 seconds.
RESULT
Both flours were blended and used to make a low-carb cookie recipe and added to a keto bread mix. The flour worked well, although I had to add a bit more liquid to the cookie dough.
Most nut and seed flours are interchangeable in recipes. A mix adds different flavours and possibly a colour change.
Rebecca’s notes
■
The
fats in nuts go rancid over time, so this flour stores best in the fridge or freezer.
■
If you
want nuts to last longer, leave them in their shell and only process flour as you need it, eg what you will use in a week.
■
Make
sure to remove all the shells, as biting into them in a cookie isn’t a nice experience.