This is the time of year when it's nice to have an ultra-quick, ultra-easy cookie recipe on hand to offer last-minute guests. Here's my latest favorite: A shortbread that consists of hazelnuts, olive oil, and a touch of lemon — and very little else. You can mix these cookies up in less than 5 minutes, and they bake off in a flash. They taste delicious too: Sweet, nutty, savory from the oil, and salty on the finish.
I am really enamored of baking with olive oil; I think that the flavor of olive oil can add something really special to baked goods where you might not expect it. I even made an olive oil cake for my wedding!
But I had never tried a shortbread with olive oil, and given that butter is such an important element of traditional shortbread, I was unsure whether it would work. But I wanted to try a new challenge for a little project with Bob's Red Mill and California Olive Ranch, who teamed up to promote baking with olive oil. I was happy to jump in, since I have a special fondness for baked goods with olive oil.
• See more bloggers' olive oil baked good recipes: Baking a Better Holiday! at California Olive Ranch
Lucky for me, these cookies turned out amazingly well. They aren't much to look at — crumbly and brown — but they have warm, nutty flavor, and a deliciously crisp, sturdy, and toasty texture. I drizzled a little lemon glaze over top, too, which complemented that toasted nut flavor beautifully. Two of these, and a cup of tea, and afternoon snack time is perfectly arranged.
Hazelnut & Olive Oil Shortbread
makes 18 to 24 small cookie slices
1 1/4 cup hazelnut meal
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar, plus 1/4 cup for glaze
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup extra-virgin light olive oil
Heat the oven to 375°F. Whisk together the hazelnut meal, flour granulated sugar, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, salt and lemon zest. Whisk in the vanilla and olive oil. The dough will be sandy and quite crumbly.
Press the dough firmly into a 8x8-inch (or 9x9-inch) dish. Bake for 20 minutes or until just lightly browned around the edges. Immediately cut the shortbread into diamonds or squares. Let cool completely before lifting them out of the pan, however.
Meanwhile, whisk together 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice and the remaining 1/4 cup powdered sugar and drizzle over the warm cookies.
Related: Recipe: Chocolate Chip and Toffee Shortbread Cookies
(Images: Faith Durand)
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These look so yummy!
Though the ingredient list says 1/4 cup powdered sugar, the recipe instructions say to add in 1/3 cup powdered sugar. Which one is it?
Where did you purchase hazelnut meal? Or did you make some by grinding up hazelnuts in a food processor? Thanks!
@emmmmma oh so sorry - fixed that.
@Bull City I used Bob's Red Mill's hazelnut meal.
I need help! I made these and LOVE them. The only change I made was to use gluten free flour, and the shortbread doesn't stick together very well. Could the missing guten be an essential binder, and if so do you have any suggestions for an alternate binder? Has anyone else had this problem? Because they are so yummy, and I want to make them all the time!
Can you substitute other nut meals for hazelnut? I dont have hazelnut meal and was thinking of doing it with ground cashews.
I ground up hazelnuts, and it looked more like a batter than a sandy dough, so I added a cup of flour. What a beautiful fragrance!
Okay. After making these cookies (which, by the way, are the best cookies I've made all year--and I make a lot of cookie), I feel I can write a dissertation on hazelnut flour.
First a proviso: these are like the prime rib of cookies. A bag of hazelnut flour (IF you can find it) will set you back the better part of a $20 bill. Mine cost me $17. But then I'll just grind my own, right? Well, if you do then you'll have hazelnut butter and not hazelnut flour. From what I can tell, the "flour" is made from grinding the grist after the nuts have been pressed for their oil. So what you have a it a dryer, crumblier meal.
That said, these cookies are showstoppers. Sweet and savory. Nutty and tart. And once you take out a second mortgage on your house for the hazelnut flour, which is only available in the next state over, then making them is a breeze. You can literally dump it all in a bowl, give it a good mix your hands and press it into your pan.
Also, I would normally say this glaze it too runny. But you don't really want an icing on these cookies. If you just drizzle this liquid over them at the end (they soak it right up so you can't see any "glaze" -- you just taste some sweet, lemony spots when your eating them).
Overall, these are a dynamite cookie, but not something I'm making for the mailman. If you don't want to blow your entire xmas savings on cookie, then make a nice snickerdoodle. But if you want something dazzling, then these are your cookie!
Just made these today, and oh my god, these are to die for. Seriously fabulous!
I disagree with @jojomomo about grinding your own hazelnut flour. I've done it successfully in other recipes, and it worked for this recipe too. What I get out of my food processer seems very similar to the commercial products I've seen, but much cheaper (it's a little less consistent, but it's not less fine or powdery). I do think it helps to have made nut butter (the more times the better), so you know the stages of grinding nuts and you know when to stop before it goes to far.
On to these cookies: delicious, quick, easy. What more could I ask for? In the future, I'll leave off the lemon glaze (I don't love what it did for the flavor, and I really don't love what it did for the texture; the cookies are softer everywhere the glaze set in). If you're not a salty-sweet fan, you should probably also cut the salt a bit. I used kosher salt (like the recipe called for), and I would still describe them as overtly salty. It's on the edge of what I find acceptable, so I can see how others might not like it.
I made a variation of these with orange zest instead of lemon, a dollop of egg white and orange juice, and half cake flour half reg flour. Cut the salt to half tsp. Make sure to well pack your brn sugar. No frosting needed. Instead of flattening them out in a large pan I made small rounds about 1.5 inches wide and flattened to about quarter inch. I baked them for 15 minutes and took them out when edges were toasty brown. The crisp edges are the business. Fantastic!
I found the hazelnut meal from yankeetraders.net. they also had almond and pecan meal