Nutella Crêpes: A Guest Post

This February, the recipes on Cup of Jo are all nutella themed. So far there has been Nutella Swirled Banana Bread by Zoë François (of Zoe Bakes) and Nutella Pudding by Ashley Rodriguez (of Not Without Salt).

Joanna (and Shoko, who helps run the series) asked me to contribute a recipe a few months ago. I chose to make crêpes - my favourite ones with brown butter and a good pinch of salt - slathered in nutella and scattered with toasted hazelnuts.

You can see the post here.



Three other guest posts I've written in the past year or so:
Blackcurrant Baked Alaska
Blueberry Braided Bread
Coco-Cocoa Brownies

Self Frosting Cupcakes

We all know how comforting Nutella is. It's the perfect hard-at-work sweet sustenance. These cupcakes are a great way to dress up the teaspoon of Nutella that usually comes from the jar on a spoon or on toast. 

The first time I made these cupcakes I made them in my special gold foil cases. Nutella deserves special cases. Then I baked them and realised that in fact the beautiful buttery yellow of these cupcakes clashed with the gold. Fail.

The original recipe from Donna Hay calls for peanut butter to be swirled into the recipe so the next time I made them I tried mini versions with either Nutella, PB or a mixture. I think the best combination is  Nutella and a bigger size. 

I found these originally on a few different blogs (haven't got the exact links as I didn't use the recipes) and they had significantly reduced the butter - please don't do this, the butter is what makes the cake part delicious. 

Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes

(adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics: Book 2)

135g plain flour

1/8 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

120g unsalted butter

75g caster sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

8 tsp Nutella (or peanut butter)

Preheat your oven to 170C/325F. Line a muffin tin with 8 liners. Sift the flour, baking power and salt together into a bowl. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add an egg and beat well, then repeat with the other egg, adding a little flour from the bowl if needed. Beat in the vanilla, then the flour mix. Divide the  mixture between the cases. Add a tsp of Nutella to each case then use a toothpick to swirl it into the batter. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean (from a non-Nutella patch). Leave to cool on a wire rack. 

(Makes 8)

A Nutella Dégustation

Oh Nutella. How much we love thee. My flat consumes an abnormal amount of nutella.

As a tribute to this, when flatmate one was at a chocolate factory near her home in Belgium she bought us a jar of their chocolate spread. We didn't dare open the little jar of 'posh tella' and had a few jars of regular nutella instead. Then flatmate two bought a jar of sainsbury's own to see if the cheaper option was acceptable.

It seemed quite obvious to me - I needed to try out one of the lovely recipes for homemade nutella, and then we needed to have a taste test. A dégustation.

 Homemade nutella is ridiculously easy to make. Just a matter of roasting nuts, de-skinning them and then a lot of pressing the 'on' button on your food processor. You could even buy the hazelnuts ready to go. It's like magic!

I blasted and re-blasted mine but it never lost that slightly grainy texture. I actually think I might prefer it slightly grainy, particularly on toast. It seems pretty difficult to get that smooth spread feel with homemade.

To set up our little dégustation, we invited two friends over (better statistics...), then I put a two tablespoons of each type in a ramekin, with a number below. Each tester had a sheet of paper with each number, a mark out of ten and a space for a comment. At the end they were asked to identify each one.  Each person tested each spread both on a spoon and with a small square of bread. They had some tea and sparkling water to refresh between each tasting. (Yes, I am a food geek.)

Number One was flatmate one's belgian spread. It scored 5.5/10 on average.
Number Two was the classic Nutella. It got 7/10.
Number Three was my homemade version. It also got 7/10.
Number Four was sainsbury's Belgian Chocolate Spread. It was given 6.25/10.

The homemade had the highest single score, with 9/10.  All of the comments about mine noted a slightly grainier texture and a more pronounced hazelnut flavour. Apparently it's also 'more eatable'.  Everybody correctly identified Nutella and the homemade version, though the other two were consistently mixed up - which is pretty interesting considering the supposed quality and price difference. As they all correctly identified my spread, I sense a little bias towards not upsetting me in the marking process...

All in all, it was a lovely evening. I've been told that we should have a second edition with something different. Jam was a suggestion - any ideas?

My favourite way to eat my homemade version so far (others include crumpets, toast, a spoon...) is squished between two digestive biscuits. I'm not entirely sure why it works, and why it works better than traditional nutella, but it does. Something in the nutty flavour and texture with the crunch and taste of digestives just comes together perfectly. It can be a little dry - I recommend a cup of tea. Essay break perfection. 

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread a.k.a. Nutella
(Recipe from The Mini Sam Tan Kitchen)

150g whole hazelnuts
100g good quality milk chocolate
2 tbsp cocoa powder
65g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
a few drops vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 180C and roast the hazelnuts for about 5-10 minutes, until fragrant and browned. Take out and leave to cool slightly before putting in a tea towel and rubbing vigorously to remove the skins. When they have cooled slightly place in a food processor and blend well until they become a thick paste. Add all the rest of the ingredients and keep blending until very smooth - this takes 10 minutes or so.

Bagels

People often joke that I'm like a mother to my flatmates. I suppose I am a bit of a mother figure when it comes to to food - I do most of the cooking. I get distressed if somebody skips a meal and try to make sure we eat a healthy diet (balanced with plenty of baked goods, of course).

This morning, just I was about to start making bagels, one of my flatmates came home from an early lecture feeling ill. After a quick chat she went for a nap. Her door was propped open and a breeze was flowing into the corridor. Every time I popped back to my own room from the kitchen I tiptoed past, checking she was still curled up under the covers, sleeping sweetly. I felt a bit like a mother then, with the flat smelling of yeast, making bagels while she slept.

Perhaps the family theme comes from the source of this recipe, 17 and Baking. The post is about Elissa making them with her Dad, and has a wonderful series of photos of his hands as he works the bagels.

I realise being a parent isn't all yeast and sleeping, but it was a lovely moment.

The process of making bagels is pretty wonderful. I've written before about how much I love kneading, but the firm bagel dough was a joy to deal with. I found them fairly hard to shape into smooth balls - it kept on creasing - but it was fun nonetheless. Boiling the bagels was a novel experience, especially as I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. From Elissa's recipe I thought they should sink then rise, but mine resolutely floated.

While this blog is generally limited to the sweet side of things, I decided that bagels count. After all,  we're just as likely to smear them with nutella as cream cheese in this flat.

As I wrote the last sentence a few hours ago, I realised that you could make sweet cream cheese version (cheesecake anyone?). So I mixed some cream cheese up with a little double cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Then I topped it with passionfruit and raspberries.

The sweet version was lovely. About half way through eating it I realised that a drizzle of honey on top would complete the picture - it did. I reckon greek yogurt, fruit and honey on a bagel would be fantastic.

I halved Elissa's recipe to make four bagels rather than eight, as they don't keep particularly well. I have put the half version below - just double it if you want more.

Plain Bagels

(Recipe from 17 and Baking)

1 tsp quick yeast

3/4 tbsp sugar

150 ml warm water

250g strong bread flour, plus extra for kneading

1/2 tsp salt

As I used mix-in quick yeast, I simply combined all the ingredients in a bowl. If you are using normal dry yeast,  sprinkle the yeast and sugar into half the water and leave for five minutes before stirring and then adding to the rest.  Pull all the ingredients together with a wooden spoon into a firm dough. 

Tip out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and springy - about 10 minutes. Start to work in extra flour, adding as much as you can while still retaining a firm and smooth dough. Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a slightly damp tea towel and let rise for about an hour or until doubled in size. Punch down and leave to rest for 10 minutes. 

Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Shape the pieces into a ball using your hands and rolling it along a surface, pressing down to get rid of air bubbles. Use a floured finger to make a hole in the middle of the ball, then use your fingers to widen it out to about 1/3 of the diameter of the whole bagel.  Place on a lightly oiled baking sheet to rest for ten minutes under a damp tea towel. 

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F. Fill a large pan with water and bring to the boil. Turn down to keep it at a strong simmer. Use a slatted spoon or similar to lower 1-2 bagels into the water. Boil for about a minute, turning halfway through. Remove, draining any excess water, to the baking sheet. When you have boiled them all, put them into the oven for about 20 minutes.  They should be gorgeously golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 4.