How To Roast Hazelnuts

I discovered something crucial today. Hazelnuts have to be roasted. Or toasted. Whatever you call it, you have to do it or they don't taste good.

Here all this time I was eating hazelnut flavored things like hazelnut cream, Frangelico, hazelnut ganache, Frangelico, hazelnut toffee, and, well, Frangelico. And I loved them all. But I never ate raw hazelnuts. Why? Because they're gross. They're bitter. They're soft. The skins are icky.

Let's just say I have raw hazelnut issues.

But I decided to make something hazelnutty myself at home and the first step is to roast the darn things. Who knew? And you know what? After you roast them, they taste FANTASTIC. Just what you'd expect the major ingredient in so many delicious things to taste like. SO it's a crucial skill. Good thing it's as easy as easy can be.

Here's how you do it:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Put a single layer of hazelnuts on a cookie sheet

3. Put them in the oven.

4. Wait 10-15 minutes, or until the skins are blistered. But don't overdo it--they can burn, and that's just not right.

5. Dump them onto a double layer of kitchen towels (I put a hot pad or plate underneath as well to protect the counter top).

6. Fold the towel over and let them sit for 10-15 minutes.

7. Then, the really fun part. Pick the towel up like a little sack and rub the nuts inside together vigorously until the skins mostly rub off.

Don't worry if the skins don't come all the way off. The roasted skins add flavor. And that's in a good way. But do give it a good go to get them most of the way. If you get sick of the towel method, you can also rub them between your fingers. It just takes longer because you can only do a few at a time.

That's it! Now you can make all kinds of delicious things--for which I will be posting recipes very soon! Or you can eat as a scrumptions snack.

Enjoy! :-)