Italian Espresso Hazelnut Shortbread

Leanne Smoliak makes a wonderfully nutty shortbread with espresso powder, let’s call it breakfast shortbread. It would also make a suberb crust for a chocolatey square. Be careful after adding the nuts, I overprocessed.

Italian Espresso Hazelnut Shortbread

2 cflour
1 cpacked brown sugar
3 Tcornstarch
1 Tinstant espresso powder
¼ tkosher salt
1 cvery cold butter, cut in 1″ cubes
1 tvanilla extract
⅔ chazelnuts, husked and coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Blend flour, sugar, cornstarch, salt and espresso powder in a food processor. Add the vanilla and the butter and pulse until it resembles coarse meal. Add the nuts and pulse until they are chopped fine. Press mixture into a 10” diameter tart pan with removable bottom or a non-stick cake pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before cutting into diagonals.

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