mutteringhousewife

I foolishly asked the boys if the was anything they fancied that I could buy or make for them as I had a fairly free dance card today. After much discussion, they decided they’d like me to make a vanilla cupcake with caramel swirls that you could stick a sparkler in, light, then it would explode. I don’t know why they bothered deciding on a flavour. The German billet piped up from the back seat “Have you in Australia … Nutella?”

Well how did she know that was on my long list of things to try in the Thermomix? It’s actually horrifyingly easy, and almost as easy with a blender and a saucepan. First place ninety grams of sugar in the Thermomix and zap it into icing sugar. You can vary this with the sweetness of your chocolate. Then add one hundred grams each of chocolate pieces and hazelnuts.

Did you know you can get skinned hazelnuts at the health food shop? Usually when a recipe suggests skinning the hazelnuts, I fetch a small sigh and decide to see how the recipe copes with skins. I don’t think you could do that to Nutella. I’m using 70% cocoa Callebaut chips, which I’m finding a little strong for some uses. This may be one of them, the finished product tastes like a limited edition extra dark Nutella. Jumping ahead of myself. The instructions suggest zapping it for ten seconds, which gives you a powdery substance.

I taste it and while it’s undeniably delicious, it’s pretty gritty. I decide to zap it five more times for thirty seconds each time, scraping down the sides in between zaps. This turns the hazelnut into a butter rather than a powder.

Add seventy grams of butter, one hundred grams of milk and fifty grams of cocoa. Cook at fifty degrees for six minutes on speed three (this is the bit you could do in a saucepan if you were using a blender). This gave me a very smooth, shiny mix, which I had to find a container to contain it with. That’s one problem with making everything from scratch, at some point you run out of recycled honey jars.

After refrigerating it for a couple of hours it stiffened up, but was still easily spreadable. Lucky, because by then the Muffet and the German billet were home and were very pleased to be tasters.

Not a health food, but I did use Callebaut chocolate, Callebaut cocoa powder, organic milk and organic butter. The hazelnuts weren’t organic, but they were from a health food shop, does that count? So it’s as good as it can get. It made about half a litre, if you’re planning to do it yourself, and I would recommend it, and want to be organised with containers. And if you’re wondering how it went down with the German billet, all I could get out of her was “Mmmmm, mmm, mhmmmhhmm!” Plus a request to have some for lunch tomorrow on a roll.