Homemade Nutella is the best thing to spread on toast

It’s impossible to hate homemade nutella; made with rich chocolate ganache mixed with homemade toasty hazelnut butter and a couple flavor boosters, it’s lightyears better than its store-equivalent.

I started making homemade chocolate hazelnut butter when I was nursing my oldest. He was the worst sleeper, and let me tell you, I ate an embarrassing number of jars of this stuff in the bleary hours of sleep-deprived o’clock.

It’s equally good straight out of the jar as it is in place of chocolate in s’mores, stirred into hot chocolate or your coffee, or simply spread on toast. Shoot, I had some leftover applesauce bread with streusel when I was photographing this post that I spread it on. I thought the apples and the chocolate were going to fight each other, but that little snack turned out to be surprisingly awesome.

You can’t lose with it. It’s absolutely worth the price of the hazelnuts to make this luxury spread. And you don’t have to be sleep-deprived to appreciate it.

Find your prettiest spoon; it’s about to get something positively luscious put on it.

this …

Homemade nutella

What even is Nutella?

Nutella is a chocolate hazelnut spread invented in Italy after World War II. At the time cocoa was scarce. The chocolate maker Ferrero, from the Piedmont region of Italy smartly blended local hazelnuts with the cocoa to extend the cocoa.

Hazelnuts and chocolate, having a natural affinity for each other, Nutella caught on and now you see it all over everywhere because it’s awesome. My German friend even caught her naughty dog stealing an open jar, much to her chagrin (the dog was fine, LOL!).

Why homemade Nutella beats the pants off the jarred stuff

As good as Nutella is, the homemade is better, and here’s why:

1. Chocolate: Made with actually chocolate, and not just cocoa, you get a whole lot more flavor.
2. No added oil: Nutella adds palm oil to smooth out the spread. Since we’re using whole chocolate, there’s no need for this. As such, the flavor is better and there’s no added oil.
3. Vegan: While you can make homemade nutella with cream, I’ve always made mine with coconut milk. I developed this recipe when I was extremely sensitive to dairy and couldn’t eat jarred Nutella because of the skim milk powder. Even though I don’t have to be as strict with my dairy intake these days, I still prefer the flavor of the coconut milk.
4. Flavor boosters: you can skip the espresso powder and the vanilla sugar, but they both add in an extra shot of flavor that makes the chocolate tastes more chocolatey. This spread is for chocolate lovers.

How to save on hazelnuts if you have a nutella habit

Times have changed, and now it’s the hazelnuts are the expensive things. Would that I had a hazelnut tree in my backyard. I’d happily fend off the best nuts from the squirrels for such a worthy prize!

You probably already know if you bake with a lot of nuts that it’s cheaper to buy them in bulk. Still, it’s not always easy to find good prices locally on hazelnuts.

I’m much a fan of NOW hazelnuts. They’re grown in the US and they’re cheaper than anything I can buy locally.

If you buy anything from Azure Standard, their prices are better still, though you’ll have to factor in the price for drop shipping.

Equipment you need for making chocolate hazelnut spread

• Blender or a food processor: I use my Cuisinart, though I sometimes make nut butter in my Blendtec, using the Twister jar. There’s not really another way to get the hazelnuts into a smoother spread outside of these two options. A coffee grinder could grind them fine, but not fine enough to be a spread.

Tips for making the best chocolate hazelnut spread

1. Start with good ganache: Heat up your milk just under boiling. Pour it over chopped chocolate and let it sit. Ignore it while you make the nut butter. When you come back to it, you’ll be able to whisk it smooth into perfect ganache.
2. Don’t bother skinning the hazelnuts: I know some people find the skins on hazelnuts to be a bit bitter. I personally have never been bothered by this and always skip this step, which I find to be messy.
3. Fridge it: After you scoop your spread into a jar, pop it in the fridge. It lasts up to about 2 weeks, though a jar has always been eaten long before that in our house!

Print