Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

Think Nutella, but more grown up. This chocolate spread is good on warm pancakes. Also good on toast, on porridge or on a spoon, directly from the jar. Buying blanched hazelnuts will save you a whole step in the making process but it’s not essential. If you’re looking for something that rings more true to nutella itself, opt for milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate. 

Makes a large jar

Ingredients:
120g hazelnuts 
200g dark chocolate
45g caster sugar
250ml double cream
25g cocoa powder
1tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp flaked sea salt (reduce to a generous pinch if using fine sea salt)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan. Spread out the hazelnuts on a baking tray and roast in the oven for 10 minutes.

2. If your hazelnuts still have the brown papery skin on them, it’ll need to be removed after they come out of the oven - the skin gives an unwelcome bitter taste to the chocolate spread. To do so, rub the hazelnuts in a clean tea towel, within a few minutes, most of the skins should have come away. If you’ve bought blanched hazelnuts, you can miss this step out - well done you.

3. Give the nuts 5 minuets to cool slightly before placing them into a food processor and blitzing. This takes a little time, but they will get there. You want them to almost be a paste-like consistency. The smoother they are at this stage, the smoother your spread will be. Remember to keep scraping down the sides of the food processor!

4. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate. Place it in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water (making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water)

5. In a separate pan, add the cream and sugar and slowly heat on a low temperature until lukewarm.

6. When the hazelnuts have reached a paste like consistency, add the melted chocolate and the cream mixture to the food processor and blitz until everything has been combined.

7. Add the vanilla and salt and blitz again for a further minute.

8. Transfer into a clean jar.

For the pancake recipe, see here.