Nutella is a chocolate and hazelnut spread, extremely popular among adults and widely marketed to young kids. In the United States, it is most commonly paired with toast, pancakes and waffles at breakfast. Although it is currently classified as a dessert topping, Nutella's parent company, Ferrero Rocher, wants it reclassified as a breakfast topping similar to jam.

There is another way to enjoy the Nutella experience: make it yourself! Read on to find out how to make a homemade version… and my learnings along the way to getting it right.

Is Nutella Healthy?

Nutritionally, Nutella is anything but a kid-friendly breakfast food. In fact, it's nearly 60% sugar by weight! According to the nutrition label on the jar, a 2-tablespoon (37g) serving of Nutella contains 21g of sugar, which comes out to about 5 teaspoons of sugar (!).

Although Nutella also contains hazelnuts (in the form of hazelnut paste), there is so little in the recipe that the nutritional value of those nuts is marginal at best.

A Homemade Alternative to Nutella

In addition to sugar and hazelnuts, Nutella contains palm oil, cocoa powder, skim milk powder, soy lecithin and vanillin (a synthetic version of the main flavor component found in vanilla extract). These are all fairly straightforward ingredients, with simple analogs in a healthy kitchen.

How difficult can it be? I decided to try it out for myself.

Ingredients

• 1 lb organic raw (unroasted) hazelnuts (16 oz)

• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/4 tsp sea salt

• 3 Tbsp maple syrup

• 1 cup of unsweetened cacao chips (I used Ghirardelli)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Place hazelnuts in a single layer on the parchment paper and roast for 12-15 minutes. This will warm the nut oils.

3. While the nuts are roasting, set up a double boiler and heat the water.

4. Pour the cacao chips into the top container and heat until it completely melts. Set aside.

5. Remove from oven and let cool slightly. If you put your ear to the baking sheet, you will hear the nuts sizzling!

6. Transfer the nuts to a bowl and remove the skins. The butter will come out creamier without the skins.

7. If you have a food processor or high-speed blender, blend on low until a butter is formed. This takes about 8-10 minutes. Otherwise, you can use a NutraMilk nut processor, Omega masticating juicer or any other cold-press machine. I use the grinder/masticator component of my Norwalk cold-press juicer. More on that below!

8. Stir your nut butter until it smooth, then add in vanilla extract, sea salt and maple syrup. Stir well.

9. Finally, add the melted cacao into the mixture and stir well.

You can eat this spread on its own, as a topping on almond bread, with fruit or with anything else that you would eat with Nutella. There is no need to refrigerate it. It should hold for at least a week.

Trial-and-Error in the Kitchen

Coming up with a new recipe involves a ton of trial and error. Sometimes the first few attempts turn out awful. But you cannot be dissuaded.

My first attempt came out delicious but very course. So I challenged myself to persevere.

The second attempt came out much smoother but too viscous. The third attempt resembled Nutella for the first time. The recipe below is as it has evolved after that third attempt. Although I was hoping to avoid including more ingredients, the fourth attempt will likely include almond milk and an oil like avocado oil. This will likely settle the issue with consistency.

Outcomes and Findings

I had an idea to make a cool new recipe. It did not turn out the way I expected. This is quite common when you experiment in the kitchen! The key is to not let a less-than-stellar outcome derail the experimentation process.

Healthwise, there is a vast difference between store-bought Nutella and making it at home. Real Nutella is loaded with 21g of sugar per 2-tablespoon serving. In this recipe, I used maple syrup. After doing some calculations, I discovered that a 2-tablespoon serving of my Nutella alternative contains just 1.92g of sugar! The rest is mostly nuts and raw cacao. That is 11X less sugar than Nutella! I would have to add a painfully high amount of maple syrup to even approach the levels that Nutella achieves.

These are my learnings, based on the specific appliances that I used. (Your outcomes will vary depending on your own appliances.)

The Nut Butter

The Norwalk's grinder takes a few seconds to warm up. So the first few nuts came out like powder. Once the machine warmed up, the rest of the nut butter came out fairly oily, albeit somewhat pasty. Therefore, I scooped it up and ran it through the grinder one more time.

The second time through, it came out very loose and wet, with a similar texture and consistency to what you might find with Trader Joe's raw or roasted almond butter. This was an excellent outcome!

The third time that I made it, the nut butter was perfect. Whichever method that you use to make the nut butter, expect to make it a few times before it comes out just right.

The Cacao

Initially, I thought that cacao powder would be the right way to add the chocolatey flavor to this spread. As it turned out, though, the cacao powder dried out an already thick mixture and made the spread very course and tough to actually spread.

It was through a happy accident that I ended up using cacao chips. My mother called to tell me that she had accidentally purchased a bag of unsweetened cacao powder and was shocked at how tart it was. So I substituted those cacao chips for the cacao powder and achieved a much better consistency.

The Texture

Despite three valiant attempts at making the perfect chocolate hazelnut spread, my concoction was still less than perfect. Although my kids devoured the spread like it was catnip, I still want to decrease the viscosity to make it more "spreadable."

Next Steps

I look forward to Version 4 of this amazing-tasting spread. Hopefully adding some avocado oil and homemade almond milk will result in a creamier spread.

Stay tuned!