**This post has been entered in Pennywise Platters Thursday at The Nourishing Gourmet and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop!**
Okay, so I’ve had this love affair with Nutella since I was in high school. I was in French club (I took 4 years of it) and we would make crepes and spread Nutella on them. It was delicious. I also have an obsession with any sort of chocolate-hazelnut candy. I just love the combination.
But I won’t buy Nutella. Have you ever read the ingredients on that stuff?? Skim milk and a bunch of additives. Delicious, but…so not worth it. It’s not real food. And given that there’s not much redeeming value, nor is it necessary to nutrition…it doesn’t make it on my shopping list. (If I’m getting a treat, it has to fit into the budget and have some redeeming value.)
Every recipe I’ve found online had a problem. Most recipes used powdered white sugar or powdered milk — neither of which are real food! I’m not doing that. Plus most really relied on some sort of powder for thickening, so there was no easy way to substitute. I’ve found a few recipes that didn’t, but most of those didn’t have any cream or milk in them. I love the creaminess of Nutella…that’s what I want! Dark chocolate + hazelnuts just isn’t the same.
I set out to make my own version, finally. And oh my…it was so quick and simple and so delicious. It’s rich, thick, and perfect…with none of the issues that the other versions I saw had. Here it is.
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp. butter
- 1/4 c. cocoa powder or raw cacao
- 1/4 c. Grade B maple syrup
- 1/4 c. hazelnuts
- 2 tbsp. cream (or whole milk)
Directions:
In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and stir in the cocoa powder and maple syrup until smooth. In a blender, blend the hazelnuts until crushed. Add the chocolate mixture and continue to blend, adding the cream (ideally) or milk. Blend until smooth. Makes about 1 cup.
This would be a lot easier to blend smoothly if you doubled the recipe; my blender wasn’t full enough to really blend it well. But, it was just a test batch!
Delicious on ice cream, smeared on crepes (I put it on coconut crepes earlier this week), or anywhere you can imagine! Try heating it gently and dipping fresh fruit into it too!
If you try this, I’d love to know what you think!
You are my hero! This looks and sounds (reads?) so fantastic – it's going on my "To Make" list. Thanks for sharing!
Could I use the grade A maple syrup? Or agave nectar instead? (I have the grade A on hand as well as the agave nectar. Just curious! Thanks!!! (My kids live off of Nutella – this would help!!!)
Sure, grade A maple syrup would work. I wouldn’t choose agave nectar because I don’t believe it is a very healthy sweetener (unfortunately — I used to use it a lot three years ago!).
Do you know if anything can be subbed for the butter? Oil or palm shortening maybe?
Hi Erica, palm shortening is probably the best choice since it’s solid at room temperature. You could also try food-grade cocoa butter and I bet that would work!
Talk about divine providence… My circle was just discussing Nutella a couple of nights ago. Thrilled to try this real food version, just so sorry that I have to wait until the weekend to get to the store for the hazlenuts! Thanks for testing and sharing!