Recipe time. I mentioned these the other day and so here, let me share my vices with you.

Chocolate hazelnut little freezer square candy thingies

( Melts in your mouth. And in your hand. Hence the freezer. )

Every summer here, there's a day where you can suddenly feel fall coming--the light and shadow ratio is just-so and the air has a cool edge to it.

Usually that day is a little later in the season, but this year it was today, and it is splendid out. So I thought, hey, perfect for a relaxing lunchtime bike ride. I decided to go to the closest Trader Joe's and stock up on chocolate healthy gourmet treats.

Holy shit, that was stressful! I don't know whether I just chose the wrong route, or if every single car downtown was from out of town, or what, but I had four separate brushes with vehicles scooting past me in the same lane, with inches to spare (not the legally required three feet--and my shouting, "Dude! Three feet!" had little impact, but at least there was no other impact, which is good).

Then I saw a stupid-ass bicyclist try for death by SUV right in front of me, and thank the FSM the driver wasn't on the phone and was quick on the brakes or it would have been ugly.

Then I got stuck in traffic. I sat through four red lights at one intersection, exhaust pipes all around me.

Mind you, it was still way better than riding a bus to Trader Joe's, and I do now have several weeks' supply of chocolate, but it gave me a keen appreciation for the views of people who live in less bike-friendly places than Portland. I would not want to take that particular ride every day, or even ever again, and if that were my only route option I wouldn't be riding a bike at all.

I mean, it's snowing, right? And I'm home. So I put my recent chocolate-making class to practical (yeah, practical, right) use and made candy.

1. Roast and skin hazelnuts
2. Dip roasted, skinned hazelnuts in simple syrup
3. Sprinkle sugar-coated hazelnuts with fine sea-salt and re-roast them till they're crisp and candied
4. Lay them out on a pan and coat them with tempered semi-semi-sweet chocolate (half Belgian milk chocolate from Trader Joe's, half semi-sweet chocolate chips from a bag in the drawer)
5. Allow to firm up a bit (hah! this barely-heated house is good for something!)
6. Eat

My assessment: sweet and salty crisply-roasted hazelnuts in medium-dark chocolate? Are you kidding me? Delicious.

I might have messed up a bit in the tempering, because my chocolate isn't turning as glossy as one would hope. But still: sweet and salty crisply-roasted hazelnuts in medium-dark chocolate. Are you kidding me? I mean. How bad could it be?

(Thank you, str8ontilmornin!)

Permission to be decadent, sir?

Permission granted.

(Courtesy avventura1234)

This may be the one. A tentative OMGsquee for the latest test of the chocolate-filled shortbread pillows--now tentatively named Pandoras. (My mom came up with that. I like it.)

The secret ingredient: Italian hazelnut paste.

Holy moley that stuff is good. It's hazelnuts, ground between steel rollers to the smooth, liquid consistency of heavy cream. The flavor is dark and deep. I mixed a tablespoon of it with two tablespoons of melted Belgian milk chocolate, and used the result (kind of an uber-Nutella) to fill my test cookie.

I got the dough just right this time by adding an extra handful of rice flour, and rolling it a tiny bit thicker than last time. The result was crisp and golden, and sturdy without being tough. The filling didn't shrink or seep out or burn during baking, and it had enough body not to moosh out messily when I cut into the finished cookie.

Yes, cookie. I just made one. I ate it or I'd post a picture. It was delicious.

There's the serious stuff in life, and then there's inventing cookies.

I'm trying to invent bite-sized chocolate-filled shortbread pillows. (Why? Because I bought this silicone mold and I wanted to use it for something.) I think I'll call them "coussins ganâchés" because yes, I can totally invent French words.

I've tried sealing ground-up milk chocolate inside the dough, but it got a little burnt in baking. Then I tried Scharffen-Berger chocolate-hazelnut ganache. It held up much better to the heat, but my dough was too thin for it.

( Here's a picture of trial number two. )

Round three will be whenever I recover from the chocolate OD and get the urge again.