Give this one a try and let me know how you like it.

Hazelnut Flourless Chocolate Bouchons
2 lbs. melted chocolate
2 cups crushed toasted hazelnuts
1 cup whole toasted hazelnuts
1 tsp. salt
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
2 vanilla beans
1 ½ cups sugar
1 oz. powdered gelatin
6 egg whites
Cocoa powder

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over low heat for approximately 15 minutes. Combine salt, cream, milk, vanilla beans, sugar and gelatin in a sauce pan and bring to a scald. Be careful not to boil. Set aside to cool. Slowly stir the cream mixture into the melted chocolate and reserve at room temperature; add the crushed hazelnuts. Chill a bowl and the egg whites, and then whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. Fold into the ganache. Spray a silicone mold with pan spray and dust with cocoa powder. Bake at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes or until picks come out clean. Chill the mold. Remove for serving, and garnish with toasted hazelnuts.

Enjoy!
Chef Matt

Matthew Taylor is the Executive Chef at Lied Lodge & Conference Center in Nebraska City, Nebraska, where local, sustainable entrees are served daily. You can catch him doing a live cooking demo at this year’s Wine Under the Pines Festival on Saturday, August 6, 2011, at Kimmel Orchard & Vineyard, Nebraska City.  Have a specific recipe you’d like to see featured on this blog? Let us know.

A number of years ago, the Arbor Day Foundation wanted to produce a sustainable crop that would not only be a bio-fuel and a food source, but also an economical, high-yielding, widely-adaptable species that required relatively low input. That’s a pretty tall order, but after years of research, testing, and collaboration with invaluable partners, the Arbor Day Foundation established a nine-acre hazelnut orchard at Arbor Day Farm. What has grown out of this original planting in 1996 is a fascinating example of how a small idea can become reality and how that reality will continue to evolve into a sustainable program.

Currently, the Arbor Day Foundation’s hazelnut program grows more than 100,000 plug seedlings annually (like the ones shown at left) in the greenhouse operations at Arbor Day Farm. The hazelnut is a finicky species and one that requires lots of conditioning. Seed is harvested in late August and is immediately put into a moist stratification.  Through a series of warm and cold stratification cycles, the seed begins to swell and emerge. These are the seeds we use for our plantings. This process ensures that each planting has a higher likelihood of producing a viable seedling. Here at Arbor Day Farm, we plant in the winter and summer months with shipping seasons being spring and fall. All seedlings are shipped to our current hazelnut members across the United States.

I invite you to learn more about the continuing research into this fascinating species. Learn more about the members of the hazelnut consortium and also learn how you can help with hazelnut research, right in your own backyard.

Adam Howard is the Manager of Nursery Operations at Arbor Day Farm and a Certified Forester with the Society of American Foresters. He has been in the forest industry for 11 years and contributes regularly to this blog. Contact Adam with your greenhouse questions.