Home-made Nutella

In honour of the late, great Mr Ferrero, I present my home made Nutella! Apparently his grandfather was endlessly tweaking the precursors for the Nutella we all know and love today. And well he did! I am completely obsessed. I rarely buy it because when I buy it, somehow the contents of that magical jar just disappear within a week. I don’t know how that happens.

Of course, the best way to eat it is on pancakes, or on a digestive if you’re feeling filthy. Recently, I have put it in traybakes, cheesecakes and porridge. Nutella porridge is the best thing I’ve eaten in ages, it transforms an otherwise boring bowl.

And now you too can make your own amazing hazelnut chocolate dream spread at home! There’s nothing much to it, the hardest bit is peeling the damn hazelnuts, which I accomplished by roasting then rolling in between two teatowels – this serves to break off the outer skin quite elegantly. I’ve adapted this from a “health food blog” and mainly I’ve tweaked quantities and added sugar. Oh well, what else have you come to expect?

  Makes one small jar

Ingredients

• 1 cup of hazelnuts
• 30ml maple syrup
• 50g caster sugar
• 1.5 tbsp cocoa powder
• 60ml water

Method

Bake hazelnuts in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for approximately 10 minutes.

When out of oven, place between two halves of a folded teatowel and rub together to loosen the skins. Otherwise, buy skinned hazelnuts.

Place the cooled hazelnuts in a food processor and process until fine, approximately 4-5 minutes. I definitely didn’t do mine for long enough so it was slightly coarser than I wanted.

Add in the maple syrup, sugar, cocoa powder and blend again.

Gradually pour in the water until a smooth spreadable paste is formed. You might need less.

Then place in a clean receptacle and eat this shamelessly.

This got eaten straight from the jar just after I took this photo