You’ve been through recipes that didn’t turn out to be as expected? Either because you tried something that sounds good, but was from a non-reputable source, or the room was cold, you didn’t feel good that day, the stars were not aligned?! Choose your reason. ;) It happens to all of us.

The other day, I had such experience, after trying a recipe from a book I was borrowing from a friend. It was supposed to be dessert like breakfast bars, but we just didn’t like the outcome as much. I thought about a Turkish bakery classic: Crescent Rolls. When I was a kid, my mom warned me about eating them; saying they put all the left overs in it to bake it with. Well, it tasted good, too! Recently, another Turkish blogger posted a recipe for those. Now, it was my turn to try, instead of tossing them out. The resulting rolls were really tasty! Close to what you can get from the bakeries.

As long as the filling you have used is moist, have a lot of cinnamon & cocoa, I think you will get to the same result. But it is one of those fillings that one can never give a reasonable recipe for, because of the nature of these cookies. Check out Betül’s post for the recipe.

We are back from our 2.5 weeks long trip from Turkey; it was great. Once I organize them, there will be some pics to share with you, but for the time being let’s get another cookie recipe on file. This one uses hazelnuts (or filberts, if you are more accostumed with that name.) Most of (around 70%) world’s hazulnut is grown in Turkey and here in the US Oregon seems to lead the production.

My aunts and mom used to make this cookie nearly every week to serve along with tea to visitors. They had a handful of recipes that would be used over and over again. Seemed like they were interested in learning other recipes from their friends; the recipes would be written down, may be made once or twice and before you know it, they’d back to the old ones.

Very easy to make, this cookie never makes any surprises; always comes out great quantities and with succcess. Try it once, you may be hooked to it, as well.

One thing you should be aware when using hazelnuts is that unlike other nuts that I know, they tend do go rancid after a while. It might be a good idea to store them in airtight container in your fridge if you are not planning on using them for a while.

Hazelnut Cookies:

• 1 cup (approx 250 gr) butter
• 2 eggs (keep one egg white seperate, will be used to brush on)
• 1 cup ground + 10-15 whole (to put on top of the cookies) hazelnuts
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cup flour (may need a bit more)
• 1 tsp baking soda + 1 tsp lemon juice

1. Heat your oven to 175 – 180C (350F)
2. Put the butter, eggs (keep one eggwhite aside), sugar and 2 cups of flour in a big bowl. Add baking soda and lemon juice on the rest of the ingredients and mix them all well. Ad a bit flour at a time until it becomes a big ball, leaves the side of the bowl easily and does not stick to your hands
3. Roll out the dough in a clean surface to have 0.75cm – 1cm (approx 1/3 – 1/2 inch) of thickness, use your favourite cookie cutter to cut them. (for some reason we always used this flower shaped one!) Roll the remaining pieces and continue this process until you are done with the dough, putting the cut ones on greased baking sheets
4. Put whole or half of hazelnuts on the cookies
5. Mix the eggwhite slighly and brush them on the cookies
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 – 20 mins, until they are slightly brown color

Afiyet olsun!