Chocolate Hazelnut Star Tear and Share

Chocolate Hazelnut Star Tear and Share

Prep time 20 minutes

Cook time 25 minutes

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

2 sheets of puff pastry (640g in total)

25g Nutella or chocolate spread

2 tbsp toasted hazelnuts, chopped

1 egg, beaten

Icing sugar (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 200°C (180ºC fan/ Gas Mark 6).
2. Unroll both sheets of puff pastry.
3. Take a plate that is approximately the width of the puff pastry and use it as a guide to cut out a circle from each sheet.
4. Line a baking tray with parchment and place one round of puff pastry on top.
5. Spread the Nutella evenly over the first puff pastry round. Be gentle to avoid tearing the pastry.
6. Sprinkle the hazelnuts over evenly.
7. Top with the second puff pastry round and press down.
8. Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or in the freezer for 30 minutes to make it easier to cut.
9. Use the rim of a 2”/5cm diameter bowl to mark a ring in the centre of the pastry, so you don’t cut too far in.
10. Cut four lines from the centre bowl (or the circle it has marked) to the edge of North, South, East and West. Then cut between the lines so you have eight cuts, then again to get eighteen radiating cuts between eighteen ‘fingers’.
11. Remove the centre bowl.
12. Take two pieces, one in each hand, and twist the one in your left hand clockwise and the one in your right hand anticlockwise. Take care not to break the fingers off. Turn them about 3 times to reveal a pattern from the layered pastry.  Pinch the two tips together to make a ‘double finger’.
13. Repeat this twisting process for all the pieces, making 8 ‘double fingers’.
14. Brush all over with a beaten egg.
15. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the pastry is a good brown.
16. Allow to cool.
17. Dust the finished pastry very lightly with icing sugar, using a teaspoon of icing sugar and a very fine sieve.