I was thrilled to make my first recipe as part of Baked Sunday Mornings. Of course last weekend I made a Lemon Drop Cake and yesterday I made the Sweet & Salty cake but this my first time following the official baking schedule.
I was relieved that it was a quick and simple recipe so I could still have lots of time to celebrate my man’s birthday. I bought raw hazelnuts from Whole Foods last week when I was shopping for good chocolate for the cake. It was hard to gauge in cups at the bulk bin so I accidentally bought $15 worth of nuts, twice as much as I needed. Now I know why Nutella is so expensive: those suckers are not cheap. But the good news is they are immensely tasty so having extra on hand is not a bad thing.
I roasted all of the nuts at once and spent the next day or so removing the skins at my leisure. I first rubbed them with a damp towel, as the recipe suggested. With the skins that remained I either slipped them off or rubbed handfuls between my hands to gently remove them. I don’t think you need to have totally naked hazelnuts, but the papery skins need to go so they don’t mess with the texture of the spread.
I am always amazed and delighted whenever whole nuts liquefy and turn to butter. However, my small 4 cup food processor was not so excited. 😦
My husband wanted to buy the big daddy when we were first looking at them but for some reason I vetoed it. Big mistake. I wasn’t too worried about it burning out but if I was I would have taken the hazelnuts out once they liquefied and mixed in the other ingredients by hand.
I didn’t do that and the motor did get a good workout. I smelled a bit of burning machinery towards the end. I won’t be sad if I’m forced to buy a bigger food processor! 😉
I didn’t use hazelnut oil, the nuts were expensive enough so I didn’t want to buy any more special ingredients. I used grapeseed oil which was fine but next time I would definitely use hazelnut oil so it could impart more warm nuttiness to the finished product.
The spread was perfect and yummy and will be happily spread on apples–done already 😉 and over toast and crackers and maybe biscuits or scones. We are definitely fans of Nutella here and homemade is even better!
See you next week!! Next up: alfajores! Don’t forget to head over and see what everyone else did this week!
Welcome to the group! I agree that homemade is better. The pic of your baby is adorable!
Yummy! I love the idea of the spread on apples.
Welcome to the group! Great post. Loved your pics. I decided not to make the spread, as I had a big jar of nutella. (made the nutella scones instead)
I have the same food processor (another reason I thought I might sit out on this week’s recipe). I made hummus in it recently and it was *not* happy with me! 😉
Welcome Jen! Your naked hazelnuts look perfectly naked! Oh, and I love your idea of spreading it on apples. I’ve only had it on toast so far. Looking forward to baking with you!
Welcome to the group! Nice job! Cute baby!
Welcome welcome! My food processor also got a good workout, but this adventure basically made me wonder why I don’t make my own nut butters more often!