Nutella Hot Chocolate

Nutella and hot milk together in a cup. This is happiness.

Snow goes hand in hand with hot chocolate. That goes without saying. When the kids come trooping back into the house, peeling off their snow-covered clothes, they expect me to greet them with steaming mugs of hot chocolate. And while it would be easier to just use the instant, just add water stuff, or reach for the can of Nesquik, I sometimes whip up a batch of homemade Nutella hot chocolate. The extra effort is well worth their red-cheeked thank yous.

Nutella hot chocolate is as good as it sounds: rich, creamy chocolate taste with just a hint of hazelnuts. It's also very easy to whip up. Not as easy as ripping open a pouch of Swiss Miss and adding hot water, but pretty close to it. Just heat up some milk, throw in three ingredients and wait for the standing ovation. They might even be grateful enough to pick up their own snow clothes without nagging.

I've even seen some recipes that call for mixing just Nutella and and hot milk, but I like adding a little cocoa to boost the chocolate flavor and a little sugar to round out the flavor. Hot chocolate should be a rich treat, and this little dessert in a cup is a snack you won't soon forget.

Nutella Hot Chocolate
Ingredients:
1 Cup of 1% or 2% Milk
3 tablespoons of Nutella
1 Tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1. Heat the milk in a medium saucepan on medium heat.
2. Add the cocoa and brown sugar. Stir until blended.
3. Spoon in the Nutella, one tablespoon at a time, resisting the urge to feed yourself a spoonful in between. You may need a second spoon to scrape the Nutella off. 
4. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture just begins to boil and the Nutella is fully disolved.
5. Serve immediately with a big fluffy marshmallow on top. As it cools, the Nutella taste will become more pronounced.

Happy World Nutella Day! The lovely Ms Adventures in Italy and
Bleeding Espresso have compiled recipes from around the world, all celebrating our love of Nutella. Head on over to drool, without gaining any weight.

Celebrating World Nutella Day the Old Fashioned Way or with Nutella Banana Bread... a Delicious Dilemma

Did you know? Today is World Nutella Day. And before you shrug in disgust thinking that this is yet another PR-created blog event, think again.

World Nutella Day was proclaimed by two expat food bloggers: Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso without any involvement from Nutella's parent company, Ferrero. They just loved Nutella and figured there were many others like them out there. So four years ago, they launched the first World Nutella Day and it has grown ever since. And every year, the number crazy Nutella fans participating grows. They share mouth watering recipes, post pictures of themselves in tubs of Nutella, or just write poems and essays about their Nutella memories.

It all brings a tear to my eye.

If you've never had Nutella, it's hard to get this phenomenon. But I grew up on the hazelnut chocolate spread, and I like to think that it courses through my veins.

When I was a little page-boy sporting French girl, I had the same snack every day at four o'clock. My mother would pull up in her little blue dog-hair-coated Renault Polo, honk a couple of times, and hand me a little single serving container of Nutella and the crusty end of a baguette. Then we would head to the dog park where the dogs would run wild and I would proceed to lick the little plastic Nutella jar clean. I only began biting into my baguette once the plastic was squeaky clean, all remnants of chocolate a distant memory.

Today for World Nutella Day, I'm resposting a recipe I shared a few months ago for Nutella Banana Bread. But there's no need to get fancy to begin your Nutella tradition. All you need is a spoon, or a warm piece of toast and some banana slices.

Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Bread
Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
½ cup sour cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cups of Nutella or other chocolate hazelnut spread

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, beating well.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon. Add the bananas, sour cream and vanilla. Stir well.

Spread a layer of batter into the bottom of the loaf pan.

Spoon three or four dollops of Nutella on top – each should be a generously heaping tablespoon. Then spread another layer of batter on top, and repeat the Nutella dollops. Continue repeating until you have used all your batter. Finish with banana bread on top.

Bake 1 hour, until a cake tester comes out clean. Turn out onto a rack to cool.