Chocolate hazelnut spread (Homemade Nutella)

I don't know anyone who isn't a fan of Nutella. It's like that scene in Shrek where Donkey talks about parfait. You don't remember? Let me remind you:

Donkey: You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's go get some parfait," they say, "Hell no, I don't like no parfait"? Parfaits are delicious!

Nutella is like that. No one ever says, "Hell no, I don't like no Nutella!" This is all to say that you won't have any trouble sharing this if you choose to make it. Unless your friends have been crazy and given up chocolate or sweets for Lent. Then maybe wait until after Lent to make it if you plan on sharing . . . It's also okay to horde it all for yourself too. I never judge.


If you have a food processor or something else that can grind things really finely, then chocolate hazelnut spread isn't too difficult to make. The only onerous part of the process is getting the skin off the hazelnuts. In order to do so, you should roast the nuts in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes. This also gives the nuts a much deeper flavor, so even if you're lucky enough to find skinless hazelnuts (or if you use almonds instead) I still think you should roast the nuts. After roasting, I put some warm hazelnuts in a clean towel and rolled them in my hands until the skins came off.

It's okay if some of the skin stays on the nuts, but try to get them as clean as possible.

Hazelnuts, also known as filberts.

While the nuts were in the oven, I melted a pound and a half of dark chocolate over a double boiler. My improvised double boiler is just a saucepan filled 1/3 of the way with water and a heatproof metal bowl placed on top of it. I put the chocolate in the bowl with the vanilla and stirred pretty continuously until the chocolate was melted. Melting chocolate using this indirect heat helps the chocolate to keep from burning. 

I took the chocolate off the saucepan when it felt too hot for me to comfortably grip and I just stirred the remaining chocolate until it was melted. You want the chocolate to be nice and shiny. After I took the nuts out of the oven, I let them cool for a few minutes and put them in the processor and ground them until they were almost, but not quite, hazelnut butter.

FYI, to make any kind of nut butter, just blitz the nuts in a processor until it breaks down and forms a paste.

When this is completed, I put the melted chocolate and all of the other ingredients in the processor and mixed until everything was incorporated. The mixture was a little thinner than I'd anticipated, but it thickened as everything cooled down. The resulting spread is a little grainier than store-bought Nutella, but I kinda liked that texture better.  I stored mine in the fridge and I think it would stay good for at least a couple of weeks. Straight out of the fridge, the spread is the same texture as natural peanut butter. You can set it out of the counter and let it reach room temperature, or nuke it in the microwave a minute or so to make it more spreadable.

I made an extra large batch so that I could give a jar to my brother and share a jar with Jana. The following recipe makes just shy of two pints of chocolate hazelnut spread. If I'd been making it just for myself, I might have added some cinnamon and halved the recipe. Sometimes hazelnuts are hard to find, or I don't want to spend another half hour skinning the hazelnuts, so I'll use almonds. Peanuts would probably work too. Some recipes I've seen use milk chocolate, and if that's what you're in to, go ahead and do that. My recipe for this spread is a conglomeration of several, so I'm not sure how to attribute it. I've seen some that require milk powder or other complicated things but I think it was just fine with hazelnuts, chopped chocolate, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and a neutral oil of some kind.

Chocolate hazelnut spread
(makes almost 2 pints)

3 cups hazelnuts, roasted and skinned
24 oz dark chocolate, melted
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp salt (or less, if you don't enjoy salty-sweet things)
4-6 tbsp neutral oil (I used walnut oil because it's what I had, but canola or grapeseed works)

In a food processor, grind hazelnuts until it forms a thin paste. Add the rest of the ingredients and continue processing until all ingredients are well mixed. Store in a container in the fridge.