Gianduja (Hazelnut-Chocolate) Gelato

I'm a terrible person. I used my brother's wisdom tooth extraction as an excuse to make ice cream. But hey, can you really blame me? A new ice cream maker, a book full of recipes...

What's a girl to do?

Gianduja Gelato (adapted from The Perfect Scoop)

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups hazelnuts

1 cup whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup sugar

That's my friend in the background. 

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

4 ounces high-quality milk chocolate, finely chopped

5 large egg yolks

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup throughly chilled Aunt Mona's Fudge Sauce (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread hazelnuts in even layer on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until insides are golden brown, stirring once or twice during toasting. Allow to cool, then rub between two towels to remove skins. After, remove as many remaining skins as possible with your fingers.

Place nuts in food processor and pulse until finely chopped.

Food processor: The lazy man's chef knife.

Warm whole milk with 1 cup heavy cream and all the sugar and salt in a medium saucepan. Stir.

Once warm, remove from heat and add hazelnuts.

Cover and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.

Set up an ice bath–cover bottom of a large bowl with ice cubes and pour water in until they are just floating. Set aside.

Place milk chocolate in a large bowl; heat remaining cup of cream until it just begins to boil and pour over chocolate.

Stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth.

Pour hazelnut milk through a mesh strainer into milk chocolate mixture.

Squeeze hazelnuts to extract as much liquid as possible.

Throw nuts away, eat them, or save them to swirl into the ice cream.

My friend and I kept munching on the nuts. They *ahem* were very good.

Whisk egg yolks in a separate medium bowl and pour the hazelnut-chocolate mixture in, whisking constantly.

These we did not snack on.

Pour mixture back into saucepan, scraping bowl with a spatula, and place over medium heat.

Stir constantly with a heatproof spatula, scraping bottom, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.

If you run a finger through the custard on the back of the spoon, the edges of the line shouldn't run together.

Add vanilla. Place a strainer in a bowl over the ice bath.

Pour mixture through strainer ice bath and stir until cool.

Refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Spoon finished ice cream into container with fudge sauce.

There are no pictures of it being served. It was gone too fast.

If you're complaining that it's difficult to make Gianduja Gelato, really, it should be a lot harder to make something so delicious. Words cannot describe how marvelous it is, but I have to try. This gelato is so rich and creamy and tastes like hazelnuts, but better. The hazelnut and milk chocolate combined to create a wonderful new flavor. Since the milk chocolate isn't very pronounced in the gelato, the fudge adds a perfect note of chocolate to it. It does harden in the freezer, but it was still scoopable even after two days in the cold. Everyone in my family said it was good enough to sell in an ice cream shop.
I might.

Nutella

Nutella is the best thing since sliced bread. Nutella on sliced bread is indescribable.
Unfortunately, the store-bought kind is less than 13% nuts. I don't mean to bash Nutella, but really, Ferrero? It's supposed to be a hazelnut spread. The first two ingredients are sugar and palm oil.
But it's just. So. Good.
I resolved to find a recipe for homemade Nutella. The moment I got my hands on some hazelnuts and almonds, I began.

Nutella (from worldplates.wordpress.com)
Makes about 10 ounces, which isn't as much as you might think.

Ingredients:


3/4 cups whole raw hazelnuts
1/2 cup whole raw almonds
1/3 cup powdered sugar

How can something so delicious have so few ingredients?

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Vegetable oil, chocolate milk, or Aunt Mona's Fudge Sauce

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spread hazelnuts on one side of a baking pan and almonds on the other.

Toast for 12-15 minutes; until the hazelnut skins are almost black and you can smell the nuts. Stir nuts several times during toasting, keeping separate.

Allow nuts to cool on baking pan.

Sandwich hazelnuts in a clean dishtowel and rub off skins.

Remove as many remaining skins as you can with you fingers. Some skins will be embedded on the nut, and that's fine. Just be sure to get the majority.

Process nuts in a food processor until they turn into a nut butter. They go from a fine meal to the butter stage very quickly, so be sure to watch them.

The nuts can touch now.

Add sugar, cocoa powder, and vanilla and whirl until combined.

If mixture forms a ball around the blade or seems otherwise too thick, add a little of your liquid of choice. (Use chocolate milk or fudge sauce for a more chocolately spread; use oil for a more nutty spread.) Don't thin it up too much, though.

Store in fridge for up to 2 months.


This spread is addicting. I've put it on graham crackers, bread, and I may have dipped a spoon in there once or twice. Don't judge me.

How can you resist something so delicious-looking?

It tastes like hazelnuts with a hint (well, more than a hint) of chocolate. I used oil, but it would be more chocolaty with chocolate milk or fudge sauce. I didn't think of using the chocolate milk/sauce until after I made it. My brain can be annoying like that.
By my calculations, this spread is 80% nuts. 60% of the spread is hazelnuts alone. Take THAT, Ferrero! The texture is a little grainy because the food processor couldn't quite break down the nuts completely, but I'm sure that if you run it for a bit it would be smoother. Despite that, everyone in my family loved my homemade Nutella. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before my brothers start putting it into their cereal instead of peanut butter...

P.S. My mom and I just got a new ice cream maker. And my brother is getting his wisdom teeth out soon... That means LOTS of ice cream! Yay!