Niamh Shields burst onto the blogging scene in 2007 and has since snapped up countless accolades for her food writing by The Times, The Telegraph and The Stylist, to name a few. Niamh is passionate about cooking, and when she's not travelling the world collecting culinary tips, she's at home concocting new and interesting meals for friends and family, including her foody fledgling niece. Here, Niamh shares all her know-how for delicious and easy home-cooking.
My healthier take on Nutella
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Everyone has a guilty pleasure...or four. Chocolate spread, especially nutella, is a favourite for many and it has been for me, especially in childhood when it was a treat which I would guiltily forage for in the kitchen cupboards when I thought that nobody was looking.
Nutella is actually a version of the famous Italian chocolate and hazelnut spread gianduja. Gianduja was made and marketed first, and it's a chocolate and hazelnut or almond spread that is usually 50:50 and it was created to spread chocolate a bit further in times of scarcity.
Nutella came after and is a more commercial spread with a much lower volume of nuts, at about 13%.
I really liked the idea of working on a healthy January style version using really good chocolate, hazelnuts & honey as the main ingredients. I add a little oil too to smoothen it and to thin out the consistency, in this case a groundnut oil which is relatively tasteless and also made of nuts so it works very well here.
I have 25% nuts to 75% chocolate in this recipe which works well for me. More nuts can make the spread a little too grainy, unless of course you have a super duper processor that can grind the nuts right down to an oily paste. This does depend on the nuts too so I would recommend a little bit of extra work here, buying raw hazelnuts with brown skins and roasting them, removing the skins and then processing. This generally gives a better flavour and better results, but if you are strapped for time you will still get a lovely spread with the ready blanched ones.
There is nothing to feel bad about here, good chocolate is good for you (in moderation), nuts are high in protein, there is some fat too but it isn’t hideously bad fat, and honey is a natural sugar. Sure there is a little oil, but this is a treat, and as January treats go, this one is a goer, I think.
The volumes in this recipe make 1 large jar. If making it for kids I would use a milk chocolate to make it lighter. I like the intensity of a good, strong, dark chocolate, so that is my personal preference here.
Taste the spread after you add the honey - the amount required will depend on how dark and bitter your chocolate is. 1 tbsp was the perfect amount for the Green & Blacks Cooks Chocolate that I used.
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Makes 1 jar
Ingredients
100g hazelnuts, preferably with skins on
300g good chocolate, I used Green & Blacks Dark Cooks Chocolate
3 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbsp honey
pinch of sea salt
Method
- Toast the hazelnuts for 10 minutes at 180 deg C. Allow to cool and remove the papery brown skins. They should come off very easily. Remove as many as possible as they can be quite bitter.
- Melt the chocolate in a double boiler - a smaller pot over a slightly larger pot half filled with hot water works fine.
- While the chocolate is melting, grind the toasted peeled hazelnuts in a blender/food processor. Grind them for a good five minutes until most of the oil comes out and you get a bit of a paste.
- Add the oil, salt and honey and combine thoroughly by grinding them for another minute or so. Taste to ensure that it is sweet enough for you. If you are using milk chocolate you may not need as much.
- Add the melted chocolate and combine with a quick whizz in the blender/processor.
- Depending on how fine you got the hazelnuts your spread may be a bit grainy. Personally I don’t mind the grainy texture but if you want to make it smoother you could add a little more oil or pass it through a sieve.
- Store in a jar or glass and allow to cool before refrigerating. This will last for at least a week or so, but I doubt it will be in your fridge for that long to begin with!
NB. there is a lot of chocolate here, and if your nuts were blanched already they may not have as much oil as raw nuts. Don't worry if the spread goes quite hard. 15-30 sec in the microwave will soften it up.
Enjoy!
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