Rory O’Connell’s Nougatine Biscuits

Rory O'Connell's nougatine biscuits are delicate, brittle and melt in the mouth. The cooked biscuits keep perfectly for several days stored in an air-tight container. The uncooked mixture can be refrigerated for up to a month and behaves perfectly when cooked at a later time. Rory likes to serve the biscuits with ice creams, sorbets, granitas, mousses and soufflés, or anything to do with chocolate!

1. Preheat the oven to 190c.
2. Chop the nuts in a food processor using the pulse button to render them to a semi-coarse texture. It is important you do not render the nuts to a powder and equally if the texture is too coarse, the mixture does not knit together so well. 
3. In a small saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients and cook on a very low heat until the mixture is melted and smooth.
4. Add the nuts and stir to mix.
5. Using a silicone baking mat or an oven tray lined with parchment paper, drop on scant teaspoons of the mixture, allowing plenty of room for the mixture to spread as it cooks. A standard oven tray (40cm x 35cm) will accommodate about 4 biscuits this size. You can make smaller biscuits by reducing the amount of mixture.
6. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the biscuits have spread into lacy and lightly caramelised flat crisps. They will be the colour of toasted hazelnuts.
7. The cooked biscuits will be soft and molten when removing from the oven so allow the biscuits to cool until set on the cooking tray before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Any remaining uncooked mixture will store perfectly in the fridge for up to one month.
8. Serve the biscuits with some ice-cream or mousse.