Caramelised Hazelnuts

Ingredients:
- 100g hazelnuts
- 200g caster sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp butter
Method:
- Roast the nuts for 5 minutes.
- Allow them to cool and then rub them until the skins fall off.
- Put the sugar and the water in a small pan and cook until the sugar reaches 118C or soft ball stage.
- Spoon a teaspoon of the sugar syrup into a bowl of iced water, the sugar will slide off and be soft enough to roll into a ball.
- At this stage take off the heat and stir the nuts into the sugar.
- Return the pan to a medium heat and continue stirring the sugar and nuts. The sugar will crystallise, becoming opaque and granular, and then melt again. This process is called sabler.
- Once crystallised, keep stirring the hazelnuts over a low heat until the sugar melts. The sugar will turn to a golden caramel colour at a temperature of 165C.
- Take the pan off the heat and stir in the butter until it is completely absorbed.
- Pour the sugar and nut mixture onto oiled baking parchment.
- Turn the mixture a few times so that the nuts are evenly coated by the sugar.
Tips:
- You can arrange three nuts in a triangle at this stage and put a third one on top to make a pyramid. Leave them on a wire wrack to set.
- If you make nut pyramids you can drizzle melted dark chocolate over them. Melt 100g of dark chocolate then spoon it over the pyramids making sure the nuts are well covered.
- These can be prepared up to 2 days in advance before being coated with chocolate, if kept in a dry place. After coating they can be kept for a week or two if kept cool and dry.
- The nuts can be left spread out to cool, and then chopped and used as a coating for truffles or used individually to put inside hard set chocolates.