Chocolate Almond Butter or Homemade Nutella

I like to be a good mom. I like to be the cool mom. So I buy my kids Nutella. They love it. Nutella is one of those things you either like or you don't. I don't. And honestly, I never really thought about it. I'm not a big jelly eater either. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, I think I've had maybe one in my entire life. So the Nutella craze didn't faze me in the least.

I never even thought about why I didn't like this chocolaty spread that everyone else just raves about. I just went on with life.


So I'm snooping around Silvia's Cucina facebook page and I find this photo for Homemade Nutella. I share it on my page because that's what I do, I share yummy photos with my friends. I don't think anything more about it and go on about my business. At the grocery store, I'm restocking my baking pantry and I notice the slivered almonds. Hmmm, maybe I'll try that recipe from Silvia's. I pop the 5 ounce bag in my cart and finish with the rest of my shopping.

I can now tell you why I don't like Nutella. It's the Hazelnuts! I am so in love with this Homemade "Nutella" I made 3 batches, using up all my almonds. I had to test out the cocoas, with and without the instant coffee. I wanted to be thorough for you. And maybe I wanted to keep licking spoons.

Making this takes no time at all and with Nutella running $5.00 and up a jar, I think we'll be sticking with this homemade version from now on!

Chocolate Almond Butter
adapted from Silvia's Cucina

1/3 heaping cup of slivered almonds
3 tablespoons oil, I used vegetable
1/2 cup cocoa-I used Hershey's both regular and special dark
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules (optional but really good in it)
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

In a food processor or grinder, I have a handy dandy chopper,  ground almond slivers to a fine grain. You want it to almost be like Flour. The first batch I made, I didn't grind my almonds fine enough and you could feel the almond granules on your tongue, still tasted good but not smooth.

Once almonds are finely ground, add oil, cocoa, vanilla, brown sugar and coffee granules to your food processor. Blend for 1-3 minutes, until a paste forms.

In a small saucepan, over low heat combine paste with about 1/3 of the sweetened condensed milk.

Stir until smooth then add another 1/3, stir again, then add remaining milk. Continue stirring until mixture is smooth and fluid. Transfer to jars or other storage container.

Once completely cool, store in refrigerator. When using, if thick, just microwave for a few seconds to soften and make spreadable. After licking that spoon, and Yes I licked it! I had to try this out on something other than a slice of bread.

By the spoon, on a slice of bread or toast, spread on crescent rolls and then baked as normal, this spread is good any way you choose to try it! I can't wait to try out all those Nutella recipes with this stuff.
I'm sharing at a few of these great parties.