These are my nutty croquant brownie bars.
“Croquant” you ask? … Why am I being so French you ask?
Well I’m Turkish (as you may know) and Turkish cuisine has been hugely influenced by French cuisine.
So I know a thing or two about croquant… or “krokan” as we refer to it in Turkish.
Croquant is (accoring to turkish-coffee.co.uk, a website, I as a Turkish human, did not know existed):
“French for “crispy” or “crunchy”, a croquant is used in French cuisine to describe a dish traditionally made of caramelized sugar and almonds and usually served as part of a dessert.“
Well I don’t know about that but I wanted to eat something that tastes like this particular chocolate croquant cake (be my guest and drool on some Turkish food creations while you’re on that site btw – returning to my site optional, I’m not mad) but required 10% the effort, and this is what I came up with.
You’ll make a no-bake brownie base, press it down.
You’ll crush up some roasted nuts (hazelnuts, almonds, pecans, walnut, whatever have you, I had hazelnuts).
You’ll make a quick gooey caramel on the stove and stir in the nutty pieces, throw that crunchy, sweet, rich mix on top and freeze to set.
You’re done with your easy “croquant cake” treat and you didn’t even turn on the oven.
Slice, enjoy and let me know what you think!
Small-batch Hazelnut Brownie Bars
Equipment
- Standard loaf pan or muffin pan
Ingredients
Brownie layer
- 3/4 cup oat flour (90 g)
- 2 tbsp almond flour (14 g)
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder (30 g)
- 2 tbsp maple syrup (42 g)
- 2 tbsp sugar (24 g)
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup (nut) milk (60 g)
Croquant layer
- 2 tbsp maple syrup (42 g)
- 2 tbsp sugar (24 g)
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (15 g) sub (plant) butter
- 1 tbsp (nut) milk (15 g)
- 1 tbsp flour (7 g) gf if desired
- 3/4 cup chopped hazelnuts (90 g) sub walnuts or other nuts
Instructions
- Line a standard loaf pan (or similar) with parchment.
- In a medium bowl add all brownie layer ingredients but milk and stir to combine. Add the milk 1 tbsp at at time and stir to form a non-sticky bar dough. Press into the pan (use hands or a piece of parchment paper).
- On the stove melt together all croquant layer ingredients except nuts, stirring to remove any clumps. Boil gently 1-2 minutes until the mixture thickens and darkens. Don't burn this!
- Let the mixture cool a bit, stir in nutty pieces and pour into the pan. Freeze until set, about 1 hour.
- Slice and enjoy!
Notes
- The recipe will make 12 snack-sized bars and 8 regular sized ones. I like the snack-sized ones for a quick afternoon pick me up, which is why I wrote the recipe that way but slice as you please 🙂
- Keep leftovers frozen or refrigerated. I keep mine frozen and thaw for 5 mins in room temp when I want one. Snack perfection.