Friday, February 11, 2011

Whole Wheat Bread with Hazelnuts & Currants (Mellow Bakers:February)

Since hazelnuts are my husband's favorite nut to crack open and eat at Christmas time, I knew I had to try the Whole Wheat Bread with Hazelnuts and Currants.  I also love currants and use them alot in making biscotti, which I love with my morning coffee:)

I had never roasted hazelnuts before, which is odd since we love them so much and they are readily available in bulk bins at two stores where I shop.  I think I had my oven set between 350 and 375 to roast the nuts and I took them out at 9 minutes.  They were plenty brown, smelled wonderful, and there was smoke coming up from the pan. Yikes!!  The skins just began to fall off as they were roasting which was cool, making it easier for me to get the rest off.  Here's my roasted hazelnuts:
I decided to cut the recipe in half, which was a good thing, because I hadn't grabbed enough hazelnuts to make a full batch of dough!  Jeffrey said that this dough makes very nice rolls, so I wanted to make a couple with the extra dough I knew I'd have.  I shaped my loaf into a batard with 1.5 pounds of the dough, and with the remaining 8 ounces I made two rolls.  The first thing my husband said when he walked into the kitchen was, "Ahh, aren't they cute", when he saw the rolls.  I used kitchen shears to snip an X on the top of each roll before baking.













This bread is very, very good!!!  My husband is sad now that it is Friday and our loaf is almost gone.  The roasted hazelnuts go really  well with the sweet little currants dispersed throughout the loaf.  We have thoroughly enjoyed this bread with our meals this week and I'll definitely make again!

Here is a picture of the interior of the batard:

Thank you for visiting my blog and be sure to go to mellow bakers.com to see what others have made for February!

Mellow Bakers is a group of bread baking enthusiasts looking to bake a particular bread or breads together each month, with the recipes being chosen from Jeffrey Hamelman's book Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes.

6 comments:

  1. This wheat bread with the hazel nuts and currents really sounds & looks good. It sounds more like a dessert than a bread though. I would really like to taste this bread, but my sweet heart does not bake bread.
    Love
    Dad

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  2. Another lovely bread ! Great picture of those toasting hazelnuts. I love hazelnuts in bread and I might be tempted now to make this one having seen yours :) Joanna

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  3. Your batard is beautiful.
    Joanna sent me over to look and I'm impressed- I think I will make this one.
    Thanks!

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  4. The Allnuts nut shop is a traditional Belgian company, with more than 20 years of experience in the nut industry. We know better than anyone that you place a high priority on quality and freshness. Our nuts are therefore selected for you with an eye for quality.We have our own roasting house where our nuts are roasted (and salted). We also put our mixes together according to our preferences. Furthermore, we also preserve products such as apricots, plums and figs Notenshop

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