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In the pursuit of pure nutella

Once upon a time, there was a girl and her family.  And this girl had a growing passion for hazelnuts and nutella (as you can all tell by now, since it’s the third post on the topic of hazelnuts & nutella). Anyhow, on with the story.

One day, her uncle gave her family a bag full of hazelnuts, just because. Little did he know that this girl had been contemplating for awhile now on making her own home-made nutella with all natural ingredients (which would also be a Pinterest project completed, thus killing two birds with one stone!).

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So one day on her school break she took the lovely little hazelnuts and set to work. She promised her family a delicious and pure nutella with natural ingredients, no preservatives, additives, dangerous oils, or other “ives”, and was so confident it would taste just like the real thing she got everyone excited about it. And trust me, she said, it won’t take that long to make! Probably like 30 minutes or so. She had a perfect recipe from Pinterest, with step by step instructions and pictures. What could be better? Boy was it harder than she thought!

First she cracked open the hazelnut shells using a hammer (and rattling everyone’s brains with the noise). All this hammering business took quite some time and energy. Then she roasted the hazelnuts in the pan, to later find out that the little brown skins on the nuts would not peel off to leave the white pulp of the nuts like it was supposed to.

By this time, most of the family was impatient for nutella to get whipped up and be ready to eat, so other members, seeing the girl’s distress, jumped in to help speed up the process. One person did some research on how to peel hazelnuts and found out the hazelnuts need to be boiled in water and baking soda for the skins to come off… then you roast them in the oven. Now don’t go faulting the poor girl for not reading her recipe carefully! The recipe on Pinterest started with already peeled hazelnuts, and went straight to roasting. So the girl assumed the hazelnut skins would fall off after they are roasted. Nope. That’s what happens when you assume. The tired and disheartened girl nearly called it quits by then.

But she had to save her honor in being a wholesome food fanatic and pioneering the home-made nutella in the family, otherwise no one would want to try any more natural DIY projects and she would lose her credibility if it didn’t turn out good! So she pulled herself together and plodded on.

Whew, so back to square one, cracking open more shells to start with new hazelnuts. It was taking so long, everyone feared the promised nutella would never materialize. But as you can probably guess  (since there would be no story if there was no nutella) the hazelnuts were all successfully shelled. Another person boiled them, and then they were finally roasted.

Another person (nutella can have a way of creating real teamwork) put the roasted hazelnuts in a food processor and made hazelnut butter, while this girl prepared the chocolate and condensed milk to mix together.

The whole process (complete with the little glitches in the beginning) took several hours. But it was all worth it when they mixed everything together in one creamy, chocolatey-hazelnut, finger-licking deliciousness!

And here is proof of all their hard work…

Speaking of which, this “proof” by way of photos was almost not to be. The photos would have been forever deleted off an SD card, never to re-surface again, but were heroically restored by some clever friends. So the girl in the story wants to pause and give a shout-out to them for making this story possible!

And as the story continues, everyone agreed the nutella turned out splendid! It tasted just like the real deal! Now they knew how to make home-made nutella. The recipe was a keeper, and it was heartily recommended for a repeat. Sometimes the best things in life come after a lot of sweat and hard work.

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But the story doesn’t end there. In fact, since the family had a whole bagful of hazelnuts that were waiting to be used, the nutella recipe was put to use soon thereafter (like the next week).

And to make the culinary experience complete, that girl’s mom made some bread to accompany the chocolate hazelnut spread. It. was. delicious. A perfect match. Home-made bread and nutella complement each other perfectly.

In the years to come, when the girl has her own grove of hazelnut trees and a large oven, she will make jars of nutella and batches of warm bread to send to her readers to enjoy. Until then, these pictures of her adventures will have to suffice. 😉 That is, unless some people can’t wait that long, then they can attempt the nutella endeavor themselves by using this recipe.

And they all lived happily ever after!

7 thoughts on “In the pursuit of pure nutella

    1. Yes, it was a delight to the taste buds! And it was a simple recipe too- I believe she got it from a bread cookbook or from the stand-mixer recipe book. But it came out just like a good french bread.

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