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Whats better than Nutella?
Homemade Nutella.
What’s better than Homemade Nutella?
Nutella make with additions of dark chocolate, Valrhona cocoa powder and roasted cacao nibs. Oh, yes.
I remember eating Nutella from the jar in college when I needed to study late into the night, hoping that the sugar will work its magic. While I still adore Nutella (clearly, because I have even categorised recipes on this blog based on that), I find them a tad too sweet to eat off the spoon. Not willing to give up that pleasure, I resorted to make Nutella at home with dark chocolate to balance the milk chocolate that goes into the jarred Nutella and did not add any additional sugar. This, my friends, must be heaven on a spoon.
When I was reading up recipes for homemade Nutella on the internet, I came across a bunch of them that has way too much icing sugar or used honey (and I’m pretty sure would taste nothing like Nutella!) so I just sat down and put together recipes starting with the ingredients I’d like to use. It tasted absolutely fantastic, but if I’m going to be calling it Nutella, I need to work a little more to attain that smooth texture.
Also, these make such wonderful gifts for the season in little jars!
Homemade Nutella
½ cup / 100g (approx.) hazelnuts, skinned and toasted
50g / 2oz. dark chocolate
50g / 2oz. milk chocolate
1 tbsp cocoa powder
½ a vanilla bean, split and scraped
1 tbsp cacao nibs
1 tbsp hazelnut oil (you could use any flavourless oil if you don’t have this at hand)
- Grind the toasted hazelnuts in a food processor until thoroughly pulverised.
- In a bowl set over simmering water, melt the dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Add the cocoa powder and vanilla bean innards. Mix until evenly incorporated.
- Stir in the ground hazelnuts and cacao nibs.
- Add a tablespoon of hazelnut oil to bring it all together.
- Transfer to a sterilised jar and lick off the rest of the bowl when no one’s watching.
This is probably the first time I’ve kept up with baking my challenge. (you’re probably looking up at the date and thinking, yea right! but read on!). I love the rush that comes with baking last minute. But this time I was going to be in Atlanta for my cousin’s wedding, so I baked the flourless cake well in advance. I thought I’d write up the post while on the plane, but ran out of power. I thought I’d do it while at my cousin’s place, but their modem broke. So yesterday I made a quick photo post thanks to an unsecured network connection in the neighbourbood!
Till date my favourite challenge has been the
Danish braid. I *loved* everything about it! But with this Daring Bakers’ challenge I’ve discovered my favourite dessert. I can’t begin to describe how much I enjoyed this. Three quality ingredients gave some astounding results. I didn’t even give the OH as much as I usually do! I used a mixture of chocolates; one of them had nibs and I loved the nutty texture it gave to the silky smooth chocolate cake. Thanks Dharm and Wendy for this wonderful, wonderful challenge!
I made a strawberry yoghurt to serve with the cake, but photographing it was such a task! Either the city it too hot, or I’m just too slow in photographing it!
Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Recipe Source: Chef Wan
16 oz. / 454g fine chocolate ( I used a combination of Ghirardelli bittersweet 60% cacao, Ghirardelli milk chocolate and Scharffen Berger 62% cacao semisweet nibby bar)
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated
For the ganache:
Melted chocolate + butter + cream. I just went with the flow and mixed till I got a thick and creamy consistency.
- Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
- While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
- Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
- Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
- With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
- Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
- Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
- Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
- Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
- Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
- Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then un-mold.
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Blog checking information:
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.
