nutella

Mmmmm. Melt in your mouth, smooth and hazel-nutty, chocolately and rich.  But store-bought nutella is not that great for you: the first two ingredients? Sugar and modified palm oil.

This version is less sweet, and much healthier. Next time, I'm going to make it with all dark chocolate. What to do with a whole jar? The nutella website has a idea: make banana bread, and swirl a 1/2 a cup into the batter before you bake it.

Soon, you too will be standing in front of your refrigerator at one in the morning, eating this straight from the jar with your finger.


Homemade Nutella

1 1/3 cup hazelnuts
1/3 cup almonds
1 3/4 whole milk
7/8 cup powdered whole milk
3 tbsp honey
6 oz dark chocolate
5 oz milk chocolate

Preheat oven to 350. Spread the nuts on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, until toasted, stirring once or twice.

Put the nuts in a clean towel, fold the towel over, and rub them until most of the skins come off the hazelnuts. Put the hazelnuts and almonds in a food processor, and pulse until you have a fine, fine grind.

Heat the milk, honey and milk powder over medium heat, whisking until all the milk powder is dissolved. Pour mixture into the food processor and pulse to combine.

Melt the dark and milk chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water. (Alternately, you could chop up the chocolate and microwave it, stirring every 30 seconds, until it's melted.) Add melted chocolate to the food processor, and pulse to combine. The nutella will be very runny - don't worry, it will get much more solid after a few hours in the fridge.

Store the nutella in a jar in the fridge for up to a week (since it contains fresh milk products). You could also freeze some of it, if you don't want to eat it all in one week.