Nutella-icious

Yesterday, I received one of my favorite things... a letter... you know one of those handwritten ones. I wish I could say I was better at sending them myself, but I'm a child of technology. I'm working on it, because I realize how much I treasure receiving something special in the mail, so I want to pass that feeling along. But this particular letter came all the way from the forests of Idaho. My Aunt found the most wonderful article about a new "Nutelleria" in Bologna, Italy. Think Starbucks with all things Nutella: pizza, fruit salad, doughnuts. Sounds like my dream. My aunt knows it's one of my love languages. If only I wasn't so health conscious now,  I'd be binge eating Nutella every day like I did in Rome. Luckily, I found the perfect Nutella alternative on this lovely blog that I've been saving for the perfect day (which was yesterday!). Not that it's particularly "healthy", but it's natural and unprocessed and I love that!

I make a mess when I cook. Is there any other way?

Chocolate hazelnut deliciousness!

Since I don't own a food processor, only this dinky chopper, I cute the recipe in half. I also changed a couple ingredients for convenience and preference. Here's my modified recipe:

3/4 cup hazelnuts
2 Tbs. Truvia (instead of white sugar)
1/8 cup + 1 Tbs. cocoa (I used Trader Joe's brand)
1/4 cup organic maple agave syrup blend (once again, TJ's, love it!)
2 Tbs grapeseed oil
1 Tbs almond milk

Chop it up, blend it together and you have homemade chocolate hazelnut heaven. So good on bananas or strawberries. It would also make a wonderful topping for pancakes or waffles, mmm, or crepes. Go crazy!

J' Adore Macarons

After much anticipation, I tackled the ever delicate art of macarons. It was quite the process to simply locate all the necessary tools and ingredients (Buy the almond flour at Trader Joe's! Cheapest.). I did discover my new favorite grocery store, Gelsons. Is it weird to be in love with a food store? My roommate can attest to my pure delight and constant distraction down EVERY aisle. They have a little cafe with GELATO, dinosaur shaped cookies, and a hamburger cake! Seriously? I should start selling my macarons here!

Before I began, I had to decide what flavors and fillings to use. I ended up nixing the vanilla bean cookie idea because those vanilla bean pods cost their weight in gold. I wanted to do a little trial and error first. For the filling, I chose lemon curd and thickened Nutella. The lemon curd turned out brilliant despite my quick improvisation of a frying pan and pot as a doubler boiler. Yes, that works, and yes, we are sadly lacking in the kitchen equipment department. Taking donations now!

The Nutella was tricky because I looked at about 5 recipes, mixing and matching whatever ingredients we actually had in the house (which isn't much). I used a generous 1/2 cup of Nutella, 1 teaspoon unsalted butter, a little less than 1/4 cup powered sugar, and 2% milk as need to create the right consistency. See the improvisation written all over it? Trial and error. Trial and error. It's hard to mess up Nutella though. Its hazelnut chocolateyness is just too delicious for its own good.
The macaron cookie process surprised me in it's simplicity. My only complaints are a sore arm from whipping the egg whites and maybe a smidge too much sugar... although that could have been my fault for not incorporating it thoroughly because I mixed the sugar in by the tablespoon instead of the teaspoon. Read your recipe carefully friends!

Draw circles on the back of the parchment paper with a round objects to create identical cookie sizes. Use a piping bag to drop the mixture on the baking sheet. These bags are a pain to fill by yourself, so set it inside a bowl to keep it steady while you pour. I was covered with macaron guts by the end! Then, let your macarons rest and drop the tray on a table to get out all those pesky air bubbles. These are key steps to success. Next time I will leave the macarons in the oven longer. My oven runs a little cooler, I discovered, since most of the cookie bottoms stuck to the pan, even with the parchment paper.

Lastly fill those delightful, delicate cookies, but not too much! Less is more in this case. You don't want to overwhelm them. I learned that the hard way as I had to go back and scoop out filling. Refrigerate and enjoy!

 

Mine turned out well for a first attempt, but certainly a long way to go toward perfection. I loved this baking challenge and can't wait to apply what I've learned and tackle them again in the future!