Nutella at Home

Turning a Grocery Indulgence into a Homemade Delight!

Greetings Friends, 🌰 🍫

We are interrupting our regularly scheduled Grilling 🔥 Series for a quick detour!

First… one of the benefits of being a paid subscriber is you get first preference on requests. This is exactly what happened in the last. One member inquired about a way to make Nutella at home then another member asked about Focaccia at Home. So that’s exactly that we’re doing this week! Today, Nutella… and look out Sunday for an E-Z Focaccia to make at home that’s absolutely 🔥

Second… it’s freaking hot 🥵 outside so it seemed like a good time to quick a break for some indoor recipes! 😂

June Coffee ☕️ Shipped ✈️ 📦 🙌

Keep an eye out, all June Subscribers had your Premium Coffees ☕️ sent out today! This month the Single Origin Colombia 🇨🇴 is a very special bean! Pink Bourbon. These beans are rare and get their name for the pink hue the project when they are ripened (as opposed to normally red for other coffee beans varieties).

The testing notes on this coffee are insanely delicious: Guava, Black Cherry 🍒 , Honeycomb 🍯  

If you missed the order period, fear not! Last month we got some late orders, so I roasted some extra this month.

All orders placed by Sunday night 11:59pm eastern time will be shipped first thing Monday morning.

Get in on these delicious coffees, shipped right to your door and be set for the month!

Nutella at Home

If you were to ask people what store bought indulgences they crave… you’ll likely hear a lot of “Nutella” 🌰 🍫 answers. The chocolate hazelnut spread is absolutley delicious; craveable for sure.

Whether spread on bread 🍞 , used as a dip for fresh fruit, dolloped on top of ice cream 🍨 or folded into whipped cream 🥛… you can use Nutella in a number of different ways; all delicious. 🤤

The Ferrero 🇮🇹 company has been making this spread since 1964 and it seems to keep growing in popularity and reaching more locations around the world. The main flavors advertised are Chocolate 🍫 and Hazelnut 🌰 that is jarred into a perfectly thick puree that spreads easily. While there are subtle differences in the listed ingredients depending on where you are on the globe 🌍 lets take a look at the listed ingredients for the USA 🇺🇸

Ingredients

Sugar

Palm oil

Hazelnuts

Cocoa

Skim milk

Reduced minerals whey (milk)

Lecithin as emulsifier (soy)

Vanillin: an artificial flavor

Just by looking at the recipe we can see, the top (2) ingredients are sugar and palm oil.

Not chocolate… nor hazelnuts.

This isn’t a dealbreaker for occasional use, but what if we can make something at home that uses chocolate and hazelnuts… eliminates most of the sugar… and removes all the oil and emulsifiers?

That’s what we’re going to do right now!

I’m thankful for spending a lot of time in pastry and baking during my pro-kitchen years. Getting to work with some immensely talented chefs that were more big brain than myself, for sure.

A lot of savory chefs avoid baking and pastry completely. There’s an unwritten rule that savory and sweet are two different skill sets and disciplines. In many cases this is true but for me this added a huge depth to my cooking skill set that I still use today.

This recipe is adapted from one the Chocolate Encyclopedia editions 🇫🇷 written many years ago.

Recipe Notes:

Nuts: Hazelnuts are traditional. However, you could do almond. A blend of hazelnut and almond… and I think macadamia nut could be really nice as well.

Fat %’s:

Both the dairy and chocolate elements contain fat. When you’re mixing chocolate and dairy, fat %’s matter in regards to keeping a good emulsion and desirable consistency. Changing the overall amount of fat will make subtle changes to vicosity etc.

Dairy: the recipe calls for whole milk and whole milk powder. Try to get whole milk powder but if you can’t find it, use nonfat, while using the liquid whole milk.

Chocolate: Milk chocolate is traditional. Use a minimum 30% solid milk chocolate. You could use a blend of semisweet, or dark chocolate… or even use all dark chocolate. If you do this I’d recommend not going past 60% solids on the dark chocolate. You’ll get that lovely dark chocolate note without throwing the fats all out of whack.

Finally, don’t use chocolate chips. Bar chocolate is a higher quality, will give you a much better result.

For a full breakdown on chocolate check previous Substack ⬇️

Perfect Chocolate Mousse

Smooth or Textured:

At the end of the recipe you can strain out all the nut solids if you want a smooth version (like the original). Or you can leave the nut solids in and you’ll have a spreadable Nutella that has a little texture. (I like the texture). It’s up to you! Use a fine mesh strainer if getting the solids out.

Homemade Nutella

INGREDIENTS

• 200g Hazelnuts

• 400g Whole milk

• 60g Powdered milk (ideally whole)

• 310g milk chocolate, finely chopped (serrated knife works well; see note about blending other chocolates)

• 35g Honey

• 2g Sea salt (or eye ball a pinch)

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 350F. On a sheet pan, bake the hazelnuts for 10-15 mins, or until golden brown.

2. While the hazelnuts bake, take the the whole milk, powdered milk, honey and salt.. combine in a small saucepan. Heat over medium high heat until lightly boiling. Stir once or twice so the honey is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour immediately over the chocolate, and cover with platic wrap or a lid to keep the heat in.

3. Take the nuts from the oven, if they have any husks rub them gently in a towel to remove. Then place in a food processor.

4. Now grind the warm hazelnuts as fine possible. There’s no way you’ll get them completely smooth. May take 5 mins or so to get a fine-meal consistency.

5. Stir the milk-chocolate mixture while the nuts are processing until smooth; keep in a slightly warm place.

6. Now add the chocolate mixture to the ground nuts and process until everything is well-combined. You want the mixture to be homogenous. 2-3 mins.

7. At this point you can strain or put the Nutella straight into jars and store in the fridge. (*If the mixture has cooled too much you can pop in a microwave on 50% heat and stir every 20 seconds. You dont want to split the chocolate, it will become gritty and gross; or use a double boiler).

8. The Mixture should be pourable and loose; don’t worry it will firm up in the fridge. Store Nutella jarred in the fridge. 2 weeks should be plenty of time, if it lasts that long!

Enjoy this Recipe Friends! The Nutella is perfect with ☕️ 😉 and keep your eyes peeled for Focaccia this Sunday!

Until Next Time