Everything goes wrong when you try to impress someone. Everything. I made these for someone who loves hazelnuts and I thought “This will be so easy! I’ll be done in half an afternoon.” Um, no. It’s now 3 days since I started.
The power went out while my chocolate was mid-tempered and I had to start over. I ran out of chocolate, overfilled half of them, have an entire tray that didn’t set, destroyed the perfect box I had selected while trying to assemble it, and everything smells like hazelnuts, which I can assure you is no longer a pleasant aroma.

Moving on. This box is entirely milk chocolate. Around the edge we have roasted hazelnut pieces. The ones in the centre with the smaller ring are caramilks, and the wider ones are hazelnut butter – see the one in the 6pm position (which is similar to natural peanut butter; runny, smells like Toffee Fee), and I’m so impressed with myself I’m considering a name change to Archimedes.

Before getting started I made some more caramel which I won’t bore you with since we’ve suffered through 6 caramel posts together. Then I toasted the hazelnuts following the method on The Healthy Foodie. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F and line the tray with parchment paper. Roast 8 min, shake the tray around, and roast another 8 min, and bam, done.

As soon as you take them out of the oven, place them in a clean dish towel, and jumble them around to loosen the shells.

This took longer than expected. Way longer. It was really boring.

Eventually you’ll get them to look like this.

Process the hell out of them.

Stop and stir periodically, it will turn into this.

I didn’t realize the contents would start to steam. I AM PROMETHEUS!

Meanwhile, temper your milk chocolate. (Wasn’t enough chocolate, had to re-do 3 times.)

And coat your chocolate moulds. I always enjoy this part.

After the outer shell sets, it’s time to fill the moulds.
And don’t do this. These are filled way too high.

In retrospect I’m glad I discovered this now before it was the weekend of Trials & Tribulations. I ruined this entire tray. When I tried to seal the first one I realized my error, the chocolate was pushing the filling up and out and made a mess. I tried to save the tray by taking a tiny spoon and removing some of the hazelnut butter, but it didn’t work out very well, so these are still sitting in my fridge pissing me off.

Onto prettier things. Here are the hazelnut pieces.

Finally! Something came out exactly as planned. I fed some to Boyfriend Unit since I cannot judge if something with nuts is good or bad. He says it’s good.

I boxed them up. In a week or so I’ll find out if hazelnut butter goes rancid.
Pray you don’t die. ^^