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Vegan Nutella!

For those of us that can’t have dairy, the avoidance of Nutella is a sad fact of life(and in moments of weakness I still go for it, then regret it, hah!).  Even the Nutella-esque offbrand ones all contain milk.  My solution?  Make my own Nutella substitute.  And since I love dark chocolate I’ve totally fallen for this.

1c hazelnuts 

1/4c cocoa powder

1/2c powdered sugar(you can substitute with a syrup type sweetener and lessen your oil amount accordingly)

4tbsp coconut oil

1/4tsp salt

I like to roast my hazelnuts lightly first, I just put them into a dry nonstick skillet on medium heat until I smell them(this only takes a couple minutes), shake them a bit and then toss them into the food processor. Put the coconut oil in over the warm hazel nuts and add everything else.  Pulse until very well blended.  Depending on the nuts you use your mix may need a little adjusting, sometimes you’ll get nice fresh and oily hazelnuts and then sometimes get ones that just go to powder in an instant.  If mixture is too dry, add a couple drops of your oil of choice (I like sunflower) and blend well.  I recommend just a drop or two at a time because it’s very easy to over-do the oil, and impossible to go back.  I also like to add a teaspoon of soy lecitin to mine, it stabilizes it and keeps the oil from separating back out but it is not needed.

The stuff tastes like a wonderful, dark chocolate hazelnut truffle.  In fact should you want to make some truffles you can melt some dark chocolate and incorporate it into the mix, then chill to have a firmer texture that you can roll into balls.  Nom.