Okay, admit it.  You like Nutella.  You know what I mean: that rich, chocolatey, hazelnutty spread that sticks to your fingers and seduces you when paired with bananas in a crèpe.  Perhaps you have fond Nutella associations.  For me, it’s a memory of being fifteen years old, newly in love, and discovering, amidst many sleep-deprived giggles, that nutella tastes good on matzah.  Although, for anything paired with matzah, “good” is relative.

Time marches on.  I grew up and realized that some of my ideas about food were wrong. First, matzah lost its reputation as something somewhat healthful.  Called the “bread of affliction” in the Passover tradition, matzah turned out to earn this monker thrice over.  Not only did it represent the suffering of the Israelites in slavery (affliction #1), and not only did it taste like burnt cardboard (affliction #2), but the wheat it was made out of, with no fermentation allowed, turned out to be a cause of health problems for many Jews, a population significantly prone to Celiac disease (affliction #3 - oy!).

Worse, the Nutella lost its puppy love sheen, once I realized what was in it.  Check out these ingredients, in order of quantity: sugar, peanut oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey, partially hydrogenated peanut oil, soy lecithin, vanillin.  The only ingredients in there that are good for you are hazelnuts and cocoa.  Even the vanilla is fake. 

Yes, it turns out that Nutella is yet another fake food substitute passing as the real thing.  How can something so delicious, something based on the premise of hazelnuts, chocolate and fat, turn out to be so bad?  I decided not to waste time grappling with this existential question, and just make my own version.  Turns out it’s pretty easy, and in Washington State, we can even get local hazelnuts and hazelnut oil from Holmquist Hazelnuts.  You can experiment with the recipe and adjust the proportions to suit your own taste. 

Homemade, Real Nutella (Hazelnut-chocolate spread)

1 cup hazelnuts

3 oz dark chocolate -- more if you’d like your spread more chocolatey and less nutty

1 T butter

3 T hazelnut oil

3 T honey

1 t vanilla (and/or dash of Grand Marnier or other flavor)

pinch of salt

Note: you can also add cream to your mixture, but it will not keep as long.  Especially because you’ll eat it.

Toast the hazelnuts for a few minutes in a 350 degree F oven, even if they’re pre-roasted.  Warming them will help with the skin removal and with turning them into nut butter.  Pour the hazelnuts into a dish towel or cloth, and rub until most of the peels are removed.

Then, shake out the bits of peel.  A tip: pour the hazelnuts into a strainer with big holes.  The nuts will stay in, the bits of peel will fall down:

On the stove, melt the chocolate in a double boiler.  (Take only blurry pictures of it, so you don’t have any for your blog.)  While it’s melting, place the hazelnuts in the food processor and run it until they form a paste, the stage after grinding.  Add oil, butter, vanilla, salt and honey (tip: use the same measuring spoon for the honey that you used for the oil.  The sheen of oil will help the honey avoid sticking to the spoon.)

When the chocolate is melted, pour it into the food processor and mix thoroughly.  Taste and adjust flavors as needed. 

Pour into jars.  The consistency at this point will be fairly liquidy, like a chocolate sauce.  It’s nice poured over fruit. 

The proper consistency forms after about 30-45 minutes in the fridge.  After longer in the fridge, you’ll want to let it sit out at room temperature for a little while to achieve the proper consistency.  This spread is less smooth, less sweet, and more nutty than store-bought Nutella.  Adjust the recipe to suit your tastes, and enjoy!

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