Last week, before we had a cooker, I made a (very successful) no-bake Nutella cheescake. This week, with a brand new range cooker installed in the kitchen, I made a batch of home-made Nutella.
Hazelnuts are currently in season and a big hazelnut tree hangs over our fence offering up its bounty. Shelling them is a time-consuming chore, but once you get into the rhythm (and stop banging your fingers) it’s very satisfying.
As chance would have it, this week we were in Ultracomida in Aberystwyth having a coffee and I got one of their cookbooks off a shelf. In it was a recipe for home-made Nutella.
There are 6 ingredients, all of which (except perhaps the hazelnuts) you already have in your kitchen.
However, next time I make it, I’d tweak the recipe slightly. It contains a ‘scant ½ pint’ of milk. The resulting ‘spread’ was a bit too thin. I think it could do with as little as a ¼ pint of milk.
Despite this, it made a fabulous dipping sauce for biscuits or croissants. I also had some as an ice cream topping… it made a wonderful combination!
If you choose to make a ‘thick’ version, a lovely idea would be to form it into shapes and wrap them to make lovely gifts. You can buy chocolate moulds in the shape of hearts, balls and domes.
Click here to save the recipe to Pinterest
- 140g/5oz sugar
- 55g/2oz unsweetened cocoa powder
- 285ml/scant ½pt milk
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 2tbsp smooth peanut butter
- 1 heaped tbsp ground hazelnuts
- Put the sugar and cocoa into a saucepan and stir until blended
- Gradually stir in the milk
- Bring to the boil over a gentle heat, stirring constantly, then lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes
- Remove from the heat and leave to cool for at least 5 minutes
- Add the vanilla extract, peanut butter and ground hazelnuts, stirring until perfectly amalgamated
- Leave to cool and pot up in a jar
