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Cooking With WCCO: Hazelnut Cookies & Chocolate-Covered Figs

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – When it's December, it's time to bake!

But it can be easy to be overwhelmed by sweetness during a month of cookies, cakes and other desserts.

Eva Sabet, owner of Swedish Crown Bakery in Anoka, has created two recipes that have holiday flavors while scaling back on the sweetness. Sabet joined Jason DeRusha in the Cambria Gallery Kitchen where the two tested out the recipes.

Hazelnut Cookie Cane

Ingredients:
9.5 oz. flour (approximately 2 cups)
3.5 oz. ground hazelnut (approximately 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup sugar
8.8 oz. butter, cubed (approximately 1 1/8 cup)
1.5 oz. chocolate optional (approximately 1/4 cup)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Put all dry ingredients in a bowl and add the cubed butter. Mix until it becomes dough, then wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
Cut the dough into four pieces and hand roll until it is about a half-an-inch thick. Cut into pieces long enough to shape into a cane.
Bake for 12 minutes.
Let cookies cool, then dust with sugar or drizzle with melted chocolate.
Store cookies in a jar.

Chocolate-Covered Figs

Ingredients:
Plump dried figs (Can be substituted for any other dried fruit of your choice)
7 oz. semi sweet dark chocolate chips (approximately 1 1/4 cup)

Directions:
If not using chocolate chips, first chop the chocolate then put it in a bowl.
Place the bowl over a pot filled 1/3 of the way with hot water, then heat slowly until chocolate is melted and lump free.
Dip your fruit of choice and melt more chocolate if needed.
After the figs are dipped place them in the fridge to set. Then serve.
Figs can be refrigerated up to one week.

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