Please pardon the small interruption in treats. When you’re working with Yummies, and in this particular case a one-year-old and 12 two-year-old Yummies, your plans sometimes go awry, your camera gets highjacked, and Treat Week comes to a screeching halt. On the plus side, there will be future posts on the chaos and fun that ensued when I stopped by our favorite local preschool to bake gingerbread men and houses with the many mini-chefs.
This recipe, I hope, will make up for everything, because it’s HOMEMADE chocolate-hazelnut spread, a.k.a. homemade Nutella. We’re making it with dark chocolate (think anti-oxidants) and roasted hazelnuts, and organic extra-virgin coconut oil (definitely buy organic and extra virgin since processing destroys the many benefits of the oil). My son, our taste-tester, can assure you that this should be on your homemade gift-making list.
Before you make this recipe, please pull out several small jars to fill for friends. One, because this is so good that it must be shared, and Two, because it’s so delicious that you’re not going to want a whole vat of it hanging around the house with you for too long. A small jar of this spread, delivered with some crusty bread, would make anybody’s holiday.
Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread
*4 c. (18 oz.) hazelnuts, shelled
*3 c. ground bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, the best you can afford***
*2-3 c. powdered sugar, to taste
*4 T. extra virgin coconut oil
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. With your mini-chef, spread out the hazelnuts on two rimmed baking sheets. Big Person with slide these into the oven and roast for 20-25 minutes. Shake the pan every 10 minutes so that the nuts will be evenly toasted. The hazelnuts will be dark dark brown when you pull them out and will have been fragrant for a several minutes.
Big Person will wrap each baking sheet full of nuts in a clean kitchen towel. You can let these cool down a little bit if you’d like your mini-chef to help you, or you can immediately begin rubbing the hazelnuts with the towel so that the bitter skins come off, revealing the meat of the nut. While you do not have to be super duper concerned that every teensy speck of skin is gone, be thorough.
Place the hazelnuts in the bowl of a food processor, let your mini-chef press the on button and process until it’s like butter, 5-6 minutes. Now, Big Person, pour in the chocolate, sugar, and coconut oil, let your mini-chef press the button again, and let everything blend together. This should take another minute or two. You’re done!
***To make ground chocolate yourself, chop up the bar/block chocolate with a serrated knife, place this in the bowl of a food processor, and process until powdered.
