Ingredients
Hazelnut butter cream
Buttered hazelnuts
Method
1.Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease and line oven trays with baking paper.
2.Beat butter, brown sugar and egg in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in sifted dry ingredients, ground hazelnuts and buttermilk, in two batches, on low speed, until mixture is smooth.
3.Drop heaped teaspoons of mixture onto trays, about 4cm apart. Bake pies about 8 minutes. Cool on trays.
4.Meanwhile, make hazelnut butter cream: beat butter in small bowl with electric mixer until as white as possible. Beat in sifted icing sugar, then liqueur.
5.Make buttered hazelnuts: Stir sugar, the water and glucose in small saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil; boil, uncovered, without stirring, until syrup reaches 112°C on candy thermometer or when a small amount of syrup, dropped into cold water, moulds easily into soft ball using fingertips.
6.Add butter and rum to syrup; boil, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until mixture is golden. Remove from heat, add nuts, do not stir; return to heat 1 minute. Working quickly, lift out nuts, one at a time, with a fork, and place on greased oven tray. Allow to set at room temperature.
7.Sandwich pies with two-thirds of the butter cream. Top pies with remaining butter cream; sprinkle with buttered hazelnuts. Dust with sifted icing sugar.
