Whole Wheat Nutella Brownies

I'm a day late on World Nutella Day and about 7 months late on a blog post, but that's okay because I won Valentine's Day, and it's still a week away!  How did I do this? Simple. I made a heart-shaped Nutella brownie.  It was perfectly dense, Nutella-y, and fudgy, and Brian threatened to eat the entire thing in one sitting.

[For the record, I didn’t get around to making these brownies on Nutella Day because we were too full of Nutella and homemade chocolate hazelnut spread (a la David Lebovitz).]

Whole Wheat Nutella Brownies
printable recipe

1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil (or a combo of the two), melted*
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup Nutella, or other chocolate-hazelnut spread, softened slightly
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

*I used 3 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon coconut oil. The hint of coconut in the final product was a nice way to lighten the otherwise very rich flavor just a bit.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Prepare an 8- or 9-inch square baking pan (or a heart-shaped pan, if you have it :)) by greasing with butter or coconut oil and coating with flour.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar.  Add the egg and vanilla and whisk until well combined. Stir in the Nutella.

In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients.  Then combine with the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread evenly in prepared baking pan.

Bake for 18-25 minutes, depending on how gooey you like the center.

Cool for about 10 minutes and serve warm, either alone or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

 

Happy (Belated) World Nutella Day and Happy (Early) Valentine's Day!

Even though the official holiday was yesterday, you can still celebrate by enjoying Nutella on its own or in any of the many recipes you’ll find here:

World Nutella Day
Ms Adventures in Italy
Bleeding Espresso

crema gianduia: homemade chocolate hazelnut spread

A few weeks ago, we made our very own chocolate hazelnut spread.  Luckily, Lent has arrived, or we’d still be hovering over the jar with our spoons out…but I’m sure we’ll be ready to dig back in once these forty days are up.

All the chocolate-hazelnut recipes posted across the blogosphere in honor of Nutella Day last month got me thinking about attempting to make my own again.  A well-timed article in La Cucina Italiana magazine provided the impetus and guidance I needed to get started.  For my first batch, I followed the recipe exactly as written. 

The recipe had only 5 ingredients, took less than half an hour to make, and left me wondering what in the world had gone wrong with my last attempt. 

The La Cucina Italiana recipe called for 8 ounces of milk chocolate to 5 ounces of toasted hazelnuts and Chef Karen DeMasco’s special touch, coarse Demerara or turbinado sugar (for a bit of crunch).  It comes out to 29.5% hazelnuts.  (If you’ve followed my Nutella study, that’s a significantly higher proportion of hazelnuts than contained in either the Italian or American versions of Nutella.)

Although it was an excellent variation on the chocolate-hazelnut-spread theme (it tasted almost exactly like the filling of one of my favorite candies), we prefer our gianduia like we prefer our chocolate: dark.  

For round two, we created three different adaptations, one with 3 ounces of dark chocolate added to the the original recipe, one with 4 ounces each dark and milk chocolate, and one with all dark chocolate (plus a little extra oil to replace the missing fat).  While all three were good, the clear winner was the half-and-half version.  The dark chocolate gave it just the extra boost it needed to balance out the hazelnuts, and the milk chocolate kept it creamy and more spreadable than the other two. 

Gianduia (chocolate hazelnut spread) adapted from La Cucina Italiana
printable recipe

makes about 1½ cups

4 oz good quality milk chocolate*
4 oz good quality dark chocolate (54%)*
8 oz raw hazelnuts
2 tsp granulated sugar
2 tsp dark brown sugar
¼ tsp kosher salt
¼ cup grapeseed oil

*For the chocolate, we used Whole Foods’ organic, fair trade.

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Spread hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until fragrant and just beginning to brown. The skins should also begin to visibly loosen.

Meanwhile, break chocolate into pieces and combine in the bowl of a food processor with all remaining ingredients, except the grapeseed oil.

Remove nuts from oven and allow to cool slightly.  Using a tea towel, rub hazelnuts a handful at a time to remove the bitter skins. (It’s okay if they don’t all come off.)

Add warm hazelnuts to bowl of food processor.

Puree.  With the processor running, add the oil in a slow, steady stream to emulsify.  Continue blending until mixture is smooth. (The spread will not become perfectly smooth but will retain small flecks of hazelnuts and sugar for a slight crunch.)

Transfer to an airtight container and allow to thicken (at room temperature for about 2 days, or in the refrigerator for 1 hour.)

Tip: For faster thickening, remove spread from refrigerator after 20-30 minutes.  Stir.  Let rest for 2 minutes.  Stir again.

Spread keeps at room temperature for up to three months.  To soften slightly for spreading, microwave for 5-10 seconds.

Happy Nutella Day!

It’s World Nutella Day, and we’re celebrating!!!

Nutella by the spoonful.

Nutella for breakfast spread on homemade “abbracci” cookies. 

Nutella in this recipe from La Cucina Italiana Magazine:  Biscotti Farciti alla Nutella (Nutella Cookie Sandwiches).

These cookies are the perfect combination of salty and sweet and have Nutella both in the dough and sandwiched between the cookies!  Yum!

And the day’s only halfway through!

Check out all my posts on Nutella or my personal favorite, an in-depth comparison of Italian and American Nutella!

Want more Nutella Day fun?  See the World Nutella Day website and the sites of Nutella Day co-hosts, Sara Rosso (Ms Adventures in Italy) and Michelle Fabio (Bleeding Espresso).

still nothing like the real thing: yet another post on Nutella

My bias towards all things Italian is no secret, and when I decided not to buy the U.S.-market version of Nutella (made in Canada), I claimed that it was for the taste just as much as for the fact that American Nutella once contained partially hydrogenated oil.   To be honest though, I had never actually tasted them side by side.  It was more of a feeling than an objective assessment.  When American Nutella switched from partially-hydrogenated to “modified” palm oil, I was still suspicious.  After an arguably botched attempt at making it myself, I found a U.S.-based retailer of Italian Nutella, and my Nutella cravings have been satisfied ever since. 

At Target a few weeks ago, I picked up a jar of Nutella on a whim.  When I turned it over to look at the ingredients list,  I was surprised and delighted to find that “modified palm oil” is no longer listed as an ingredient.  It simply reads “palm oil.”  Eager to compare it to its Italian cousin, I bought a small jar.  When I got home, I compared the ingredients once again.  Still the same ingredients listed in the same order (minus the “modified”).  I had high hopes.

Then came the moment of truth.  How would they measure up in a side-by-side taste test?

The results were shocking, even to a confirmed Italian Nutella devotee like myself.  The Italian Nutella received high marks for its rich and satisfying chocolaty, hazelnutty flavor.  The American version, on the other hand, had a flavor that can best be described as saccharinely sweet and lacking all but the smallest hint of chocolate and hazelnut flavors.  I was taken aback by how vastly different the two spreads really are.  I had always known that domestic Nutella was not as good as the imported one, but I had thought it would at least come close.  Sadly, the direct comparison made the American version taste like nothing but sugar.  

How could they have the same ingredients and taste so different?  A closer look was required.

      

ingredients: sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey (milk), lecithin as emulsifier (soy), vanillin: an artificial flavor.

ingredienti: zucchero, olio vegetale, nocciole (13%), cacao magro, latte scremato in polvere (5%), siero di latte in polvere, emulsionante: lecitina (soia), aromi. translated from the Italian with notes in italics: sugar, vegetable oil, hazelnuts (13%), lean cocoa (unsweetened cocoa powder), powdered skim milk (5%), powdered milk whey, emulsifier: lecithin (soy), flavors (I assume vanilla flavoring).

There are a couple of things to note about these nutrition/ingredients lists.  First and most disconcerting,  the “serving size” on the American jar is two-and-a-half times larger than the Italian serving size.  This speaks volumes about our respective food cultures.  It reinforces the sad truth that Americans as a whole eat too much of the foods we should be eating sparingly and that we value quantity much more than quality.  Case in point: the fact that the American Nutella has so much less flavor than the Italian means that it takes 2.5 times as much to even taste it.  I’ll gladly pay twice as much for the imported Nutella if I can eat half as much and still get 10 times the flavor.

The second thing to note about the two spreads is that the ingredients are the same and are listed in the exact same order, from largest to smallest percentage.  It would stand to reason that they are contained in the same amounts in both products.  To determine if that’s true, let’s look at how the nutritional values compare per 100 grams of Nutella.

Nutrition facts per 100 grams:	Italian Nutella	American Nutella
Calories Fat     Saturated Fat Carbohydrates          Dietary Fiber      Sugars Sodium	530 31g 10.3g 56.4g 3.5g 55.2g 33mg	540.5 29.7g 9.5g 59.5g 2.7g 56.8g 40.5mg

The values are almost identical, with the American coming in with 10 more calories, 1.3g less total fat, 0.8g less saturated fat, 3.1g more carbs, 0.8g less fiber,  1.6 grams more sugar, and 7.5mg more sodium. 

To give you an idea of what this might mean on a practical level:  in a 13oz. jar of Nutella sold in a U.S. grocery store, there are about 1½ teaspoons more sugar and about 1 teaspoon less oil than in the same quantity of Nutella sold in an Italian store.  Of course that extra sugar could also come from milk (lactose) and the missing fat could mean fewer hazelnuts rather than oil.

Another possibility is that the amounts of the ingredients are exactly the same but the nutritional makeup of some of the ingredients is slightly different.  For example, different breeds of cattle raised on different types of grass or feed in different parts of the world produce milks with different nutritional makeups.  The same is true of any other raw material, such as hazelnuts, cocoa, or palm – depending on where and how they were grown, their nutritional values and flavor profiles will vary. 

Let’s look at something else that we know for sure.  According to the Nutella FAQs on the U.S. site, “Each 13 oz. jar [of Nutella] contains more than 50 hazelnuts.” At an average of 10 hazelnuts per 14g (0.5 oz.), fifty hazelnuts means that there are at least 2.5 oz. of hazelnuts per 13 oz. jar, or 19%.  The ingredients list of Italian Nutella states a minimum of 13% hazelnuts (or 1.69 oz. per 13 oz. jar) – quite a significant difference and a confusing one given that the imported spread tastes more like hazelnuts but contains fewer.  Once again, this points to greater quality in the Italian version, rather than greater quantity. 

It’s not a surprising conclusion given the value Italians place on simple, quality ingredients when cooking from scratch.  It is evident that the principle carries over from the produce market to the processed foods aisle.  Italians won’t stand for less than the best, whether in a midsummer tomato, store-bought cookies, or chocolate-hazelnut spread.  And I think it’s high time we Americans do the same!

nothing like the real thing

One: I have a wonderful husband who loves me a lot.

In addition to being a master taste-tester, idea-guy, dishwasher, and kitchen-hand extraordinaire who provides musical entertainment while I cook and occasionally whips up a mean Irish beef stew, he now bakes! 

Chocolate chip cookies.  For me.  As a surprise.  When I am exhausted from working constantly.   

And he uses the Cook’s Illustrated recipe I have been testing, substituting light brown sugar for dark and topping the cookies with sea salt before baking – just the adjustments I had been planning to try!

The sea salt garnish was perfect.  I think the cookies look prettier and still have plenty of flavor when made with light brown sugar.  I do still plan to do a side-by-side taste test of dark vs. light and a couple more hybrid versions of the CI and NYT recipes  at some point.

Two: Homemade chocolate hazelnut spread will do in a pinch, but there’s really only one thing that can help ease my separation anxiety. 

 

Get your own here!

Separation Anxiety

It's times like this that I want to get a degree in food science....

Labor Day provided the opportunity to spend a day in the kitchen. My main project for the afternoon was a recipe for Mediterranean Focaccia from La Cucina Italiana magazine.

It was stuffed with escarole, provolone and sauteed onions and topped with tomatoes and roasted yellow peppers. It felt a bit like a thick crust pizza and ate like a meal! While the focaccia was a fairly simple and uneventful 4-hour process, my other project did not go quite so smoothly.

It all started couple of weeks ago, when we finished off a big jar of Nutella that a good friend had brought us from Italy last time she visited. Of the many things I miss about Italy, Nutella is pretty high on the list. I just can't bring myself to buy American Nutella. It doesn't really taste the same, and the "modified palm oil" that up until about a year ago was "partially hydrogenated" oil makes me particularly wary. Since "modified" doesn't have a specific definition when it comes to food processing, I'll just stay away. This brings up the problem of where to get more Nutella. I tried store-bought, all natural hazelnut-chocolate spread in the past and just ended up being disappointed. So I decided to give homemade Nutella a whirl. If I can successfully grind a nut butter in my food processor, how hard could it be to add a little sugar and chocolate?

The ingredients for Nutella on the Italian website are listed as follows (translated from the Italian):

sugar, vegetable oil, hazelnuts (13%), defatted cocoa (chocolate in powder form with cocoa butter content of less than 20%, I think it might be the same thing as unsweetened cocoa powder), powdered skim milk (5%), powdered milk whey, soy lechitin, flavors (which I assume, after comparing the American version, is some sort vanilla flavoring).

The ingredients on the American website are:

Sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey (from milk), soy lecithin: an emulsifier, vanillin: an artificial flavor.

Using the ingredient lists as a guide and doing some googling for other homemade Nutella recipes, I came up with a plan:

I started out with 3 cups of hazelnuts, toasted them on a sheet pan at 400°F for 9 minutes, let them cool for a few minutes, and attempted to rub the skins off with a damp flour sack cloth. Except for the few stubborn hazelnuts that didn't want to let go of their skins, everything was going fine.

Into the food processor with the hazelnuts. I processed the nuts for several minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally and waiting for the nut butter to form. It eventually did. It may have gotten a little less grainy if I had let it go for a couple minutes more, but the nuts were so warm by this point, I was sure I was doing damage to their nutritional integrity...but I didn't know how to avoid it.

Next, I added about 3/4 cup of cocoa powder, 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, about 1/4 cup of hazelnut oil and a couple pinches of salt.

On went the food processor again. Seeing that the mixture was too dry, I slowly drizzled in some more oil, with the processor running. At this point I had a spreadable, if slightly grainy, product. After sampling, however, my trusty taste-tester and I decided there was something missing...what was it? Well, there's milk in both ingredient lists: the Italian version has powdered skim milk and the American just skim milk. Could that make the product creamier and give it that extra depth of flavor I was looking for? Without really stopping to consider the potential consequences, I drizzled a tablespoon or two of skim milk into the food processor. Much to my disappointment, the mixture did not become smooth and creamy... instead, it began to separate!!!

Almost immediatley the chocolatey, hazelnutty mixture began releasing oil and no amount of processing could incorporate it back in. I added more sugar and cocoa and processed some more. I tried transferring it to my stand mixer and beating it with the paddle attachment, in hopes that it would form some sort of cohesive product. No such luck.

I poured off about half a cup of oil while my husband searched the internet for solutions. The first thing we came across suggested adding whole milk. I should have known it wouldn't work, but I gave it a shot anyway. Then we searched on "emulsifiers." Among the results were honey, soy lecithin, and egg yolks. First I tried a bit of honey. It didn't seem to do much. And since I don't keep soy lecithin in the pantry, I was left with egg yolks (which contain lecithin, as it turns out). So I beat a couple yolks with sugar until they turned thick and pale yellow, then continued to beat them in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (to heat them enough that they would be safe to eat). Once they had been heated and cooled, I beat them into the mixture. I am not convinced that they made a big difference, but somehow I ended up with a thick mass of chocolate and hazelnut and sugar goo that tastes surprisingly like Nutella. The texture is nowhere near where it should be, but it's kind of spreadable and tasted quite good on our multigrain toast this morning.

Someday I'll attempt homemade Nutella again. But for now, after the $25 I spent on the raw hazelnuts and hazelnut oil, I think it might be worth giving another all natural store-bought spread a try. Or maybe I'll just go to Italy and pick up a few jars...