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Saturday 3 November 2007

Nutella Madness and a homemade recipe


One of the many foods that I have had a long love affair with is Nutella. As a kid, I used to eat Nutella by the bottles. In those days, Nutella was sold in tall patterned glass tumblers. In fact, once washed, these tumblers became nice glasses. Everyone used to wonder where we bought our drinking glasses from!

Nutella, these days, doesn't come in those nice tumblers anymore, otherwise I would have a nice collection of glasses! However, my parents still have a large stock of these tumblers that always brings back fond memories of my younger days gobbling up Nutella.

Now one thing I've learnt is that this world can be a rather fascinating place. Who would have thought that my food blogging would one day lead me to find a fellow foodie and web friend who has links to the makers of Nutella?

Yes! It's true! I now have a friend who has a connection (albeit unproven but yet highly likely) to the Ferrero family who are the makers of Nutella as well as Ferrero Rocher. How cool is that! How did this happen? Well, said friend, Dolores, used to leave comments on my blog and one day I noticed her surname - Ferrero. I jokingly asked her if she was related to the chocolate spread makers and the answer was 'most probably' and she gave me this link to her blog Culinary Curiosity to read up on which I reproduce for you.

That was rather exciting. I also learnt that tic-tacs are made by Ferrero too. Never knew that. Bet you didn't either. Now you do. And so do I!

Anyway, since I ove Nutella so much, I decided to troll the web and look for a homemade recipe for Nutella. Did I mention that I was going to buy this HUGE manufacturing plant, modify it and retrofit it so that it can manufacture Nutella and put Ferrero out of business?

Yeah, Yeah I jest. But it would be a fun thing to do!

Anyway, ignoring my little aside, I found that there were a number of different recipes available ranging from using butter to cream but the one that seemed most 'genuine' was this recipe below.

Strangely enough there are two people that claim credit to it and since the recipes are so remarkably similar, I credit them both.
Stephanie Gallagher of healthycooking.suite101 and
Jessica Su of Sugoodsweets.com

Homemade Nutella Recipe
2 cups chopped hazelnuts
3/4 cup to 1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
1/8 to 1/4 cup canola oil
Place hazelnuts in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process until nuts start to clump together in a ball. This will take some time (about five minutes), so be patient. Add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder and process again for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture turns dark and the ingredients are well combined. Now, slowly drizzle in enough oil to make a spread.
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 weeks.


I halved the recipe and I roasted the hazelnuts in the oven first and peeled off the skins. Then I processed the nuts till the oils started to come out. I must admit that my food processor is a little old and so the nuts didn't grind up as fine as I would have liked. No matter. I added in the sugar and the cocoa as per the recipe but found that more sugar and cocoa was required to get it more like the authentic Nutella taste.

Original Nutella and Home made

I couldn't wait to try it and neither could my daughter. She loves Nutella too. So we both slathered it on thick on to slices of bread and munched away.


It was good. Vey good! Aside from the spread being a little grainy
due to the nuts not being ground well enough, the taste was definitely Nutella!! Yes, yes, definitely not as good as the original but a darn good home recipe nonetheless. I also realised that its cheaper to buy Nutella than to make the homemade version simply because Hazelnuts are expensive over here and I could buy a jar of Nutella for the same price as just the hazelnuts.

It was fun being able to make my own Nutella though and I'm going to keep this recipe just in case I end up some place where I cant get my supply of Nutella.

Now I wonder what I can make in that new manufacturing plant of mine......(One can dream right?!!)

9 comments:

David T. Macknet said...

We've just discovered the wonder of Nutella glasses - we moved to the UK & they're here! Also, Nutella tastes a bit different over here than it does in the US: it's thicker, for one thing. Don't know, but I think that they use more oil in the US version, to make it creamier, or something.

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I am almost totally speechless Dharm. My favourite way to have Nutella is in a S'more. Roast marshmallows, spread 2 graham cracker wafers with Nutella (or in this case Dharmella) and sandwich together.

Dolores said...

Thanks for the link Dharm. I'm with Davimack... the version they sell in Europe is far superior to the United States version. It's true of the Ferrero chocolates too.

I can't wait to try the Dharmella version.

Cynthia said...

Dharm, you totally rock!

Dharm said...

We get the Aussie version here. Generally I think most chocolate products from UK and Aust are more chocolatey than the ones in US. American chocs tend to be sweeter…. That's what I think anyway. Glad you all liked the post! Thanks!!

Jessica "Su Good Sweets" said...

I like to brag that the version above is mine, because I posted it on my blog two years earlier. :-) I actually asked Stephanie where she got her recipe from, and she adapted it from more than five versions floating around on the internet. One version was mine.

But I didn't know that a Ferrero was a food blogger. Very neat!

culinaryprincess said...

OHH my goodness Dharm!i can't believe u tried making your own nutella..u're a legend! I have to try this out one day.

ps- Happy Deepavali to u and ur family too :)

Anonymous said...

mmmhmmm...and SOME people say I need an intervention...

2020 said...

Homemade Nutella! Wonderful. Thanks for this.