Aliens in the Apple

Homemade nutella

Franci 16 Jan 2015 Food Recipes

I’ve always wanted to try making a version of Nutella at home, so recently I tried it. There are oodles of recipes online, and the one I tried is from here. It calls for coconut sugar, which I think is a bit of a fad food (not to mention its sustainability is questionable), so I used regular sugar and maple syrup. It is rather delicious, but quite different from regular Nutella. Ben reckons he likes it better because it has a slightly coarser texture. I’m sure you could mix it for ages and get it super smooth, but I tend to have a bad habit of trying to make things like this right at the same time as dinner, so I take short cuts.

Here’s how to do it if you want to try it yourself.

Roast 1 1/2 cups of hazelnuts in a 300F oven for 20 minutes or so. Pour them into a tea towel and rub off as much of the skins as you can, then place them in a food processor.

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Process the hazelnuts until you’ve made a hazelnut butter. Throw in a pinch of salt, 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder, 1 Tablespoon melted coconut oil, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 Tablespoons maple syrup and 6 or so Tablespoons of water.

The first time I made this, I thought I could just cut out the sugar and water and use maple syrup instead. It did not work! It really needs the water for it to become glossy.

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Whizz it all together until you have the glossiness and texture you want — play around with mixing it more or adding more water, cocoa or sugar to get the consistency and taste you want.

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And there you go. A really tasty yummy chocolate spread that took hardly any time to make.

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(And yes, a teaspoon might be making its way into that jar more often than a knife…)

Comments (2)

hannahholder 16 Jan 2015 at 9:22am

Maybe I’d like this version. I think I liked Nutella only the first time or two, then it lost its appeal.

Laurel 29 Jan 2015 at 4:47am

We only buy Nutella for a holiday treat … because of that teaspoon problem! But I’ll share another recipe which I like almost as much, and some of the family better (and it’s cheaper!)

2 lb. butter, melted and slightly cooled
375 g peanut butter (not sweetened)
3/4 c. boiling water
125 g cocoa powder
1 kg icing sugar
1 t. vanilla

Mix cocoa and icing sugar, then dissolve in hot water. Add butter and beat till smooth. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Store in empty jam jars - it will solidify on cooling.