Preparation method
For the hazelnut praline
- Place the baking paper in an oven dish.
- Put the Zùsto together with the water in a saucepan and heat over a medium-high heat. Do not stir! When it starts to boil, pay close attention. As soon as it begins to darken and turn a deep golden-brown colour, add the hazelnuts. Quickly stir the hazelnuts into the caramel.
- Pour the mixture out onto the baking tray and leave to cool for 20 minutes.
- Break the hazelnut caramel into pieces and chop finely using a processor or blender. Keep mixing until it is spreadable. You now have hazlenut praline! It can be kept in the fridge for a few days in a sealed jar.
For the filling
- Line a dish/bowl with baking paper and set aside (this is what we will use for spraying the filling later).
- Chop the chocolate into equal-sized pieces and melt on a low heat in the microwave (600 W). Do this at 30 second intervals, stirring the chocolate between each interval. After doing this a few times, almost all of the chocolate will have melted. At this point, just keep stirring until the last bits of chocolate have melted because of the heat from the already melted chocolate. Set aside for a moment.
- Mix the butter with the hazelnut praline until smooth. Then add the melted chocolate and mix until a smooth batter is formed.
- Put the batter in a piping bag and cut off the tip so that you have an opening of +/- 1 cm.
- Now pipe the filling into sausage shapes on the baking tray. The sausage shapes I made were about 3 cm long (they weighed +/- 8 g). Allow to set in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
For the finish
- Melt the chocolate for the filling using the same method described above. Set it to one side.
- Sprinkle a generous layer of cocoa on a deep plate. Set to one side.
- Take the ‘sausages’ out of the fridge and stick one of them on a skewer or toothpick. Dip it into the melted chocolate. Then carefully remove the sausage from the skewer using a fork and roll it in the cocoa. Leave the sausage there while you dip and roll the other sausages in the cocoa. After a few minutes, remove the sausages from the cocoa and place them on a plate lined with baking paper. Place in the refrigerator to allow them to become firmer.
- Leave them in the refrigerator for another hour before serving.
Enjoy!
