Homemade Nutella Delicious Hazelnut and Chocolate delight!

Growing up as a child of a German mother, we received many treats from Germany from my Omi.  She would send us a box filled with candies, gum and gummy bears.  My brother, sister and I waited excitedly for this box to arrive, wrapped in brown paper and tied shut with white twine.  Once opened the heavenly aroma of German candies wafted out to spark an instant mouth watering experience.  Mom would hand us a few little candies to taste and then keep the rest to give as treats through out the next few months.  While I was in middle school, my Omi got very ill and my Mom took me with her to Germany to take care of Omi.  She recovered nicely, thank the Lord.  While we were there, I rode a bike into town every morning, to get our breakfast.  During the day I would explore on the bike and soon learned that when I went into a store, I was rewarded with a treat.  Soon my lunch consisted of a ride to Frau Nett's bakery to get some stale bread to feed the ducks with, and also a roll for myself.  Down the street I would be given a small bag of Gummy Bears or Mamba candy.  Around the corner and to the butchers, I would be given a piece of freshly cut deli meat.  On to the lake to eat my lunch while feeding the swans and ducks.  Then one day, I was given a Kinderschokolade (Kinder = children, Schokolade = Chocolate) by my Omi.  Oh my goodness, it was delicious.  Since it was made with milk and Hazelnut spread, my mom let me have it almost everyday.  It was delicious.  I remember this chocolate always, especially now that I have a child who has a sweet tooth, just like me! Once back in the states there would be no more until that Christmas box arrived with our bounty of sweets.
Now days, we can purchase a delicious Hazelnut spread called Nutella.  It is made with natural ingredients, but still needs to have some form of preservative to keep it from spoiling.  It's quite good but I have a hard time eating it because of the preservative factor.  Imagine how delighted I was to find a blogger who gave the recipe for HOMEMADE NUTELLA!!! Could it be? Only one way to find out, try it.  I did, and 2 batches later I am thrilled.  Csilla, The eccentric cook, has given me permission to re-post her recipe.  She is from Hungary and writes a lovely blog about cooking with recipes.  You really should look her up, I've included a link to her blog in this one.

The recipe is quite simple and well written, I did add some things that I thought would be helpful to know, as well as giving the conversions from Grams to Ounces.  I've used two of her pictures (how can one improve on a good thing and her pictures are very nice) as shown below.  The one at the top is a picture of my first batch of this fantastic stuff!!!

Homemade Nutella


200 g (7.05 oz) Hazelnuts
1 can condensed milk
255 g (9 oz) Chocolate-the darker the better
1/2 cup hot milk

Roast the Hazelnuts for 10-15 minutes either in the oven or in a dry pan on the stove top. I roasted them in a 325 oven, if you start to smell them, they are about to burn get them out quick!!!

If the nuts have the skin still on them, after you roast them, it will come off easily

Take the nuts out of the oven, or off the stove and let them cool down a little while

When they are no longer hot, (take off the skin) and put in the food processor and start processing them into Hazelnut butter

Depending on the size of your food processor, it could take a while.  If you have a large one (like I did) I put it on high and it only took a few minutes.  I would scrape around the sides and off the bottom from time to time just to make sure it all processed smoothly.

Your Hazelnut butter should look like this:

When you are finished with the Hazelnut butter, leave it in the processor and move on to melting the chocolate.

 Using a double boiler melt the chocolate.  If you don't have a double boiler, you could put water in a sauce pan and place a stainless steel bowl on top to melt the chocolate.

Once the chocolate has melted, pour in the condensed milk (it will get thick but don't worry)

Mix them together

Add the mixture to the Hazelnut butter and process until combined.

If the Nutella is too thick, as Csilla's and mine was, add the milk while processing to combine well.

You may also choose to leave the milk out if you would rather have a thicker spread.

Ta da, Ci si va

This recipe made 4 small Jelly Jars of Nutella.  Anyone who tasted it wanted to take a jar home.  I've made two batches and have only my original jar, and one extra all the others are gone. This is very easy but tastes like you've slaved in the kitchen all day.  You won't have to tell anyone any different.  Let them be impressed by your kitchen skills.  :)

Thank you to Csilla, The eccentric Cook http://theeccentriccook.blogspot.com for allowing me to share this with my readers.
 
Be sure to refrigerate this homemade Nutella since it has milk products in it.