chocolate-peanut spread

People, Im no good. Im terrible news, a bad influence and possibly everything that your nutritionists, cardiologists and mamas warn you about. There I was, like most people with a pulse, enjoying the heck out of some Nutella on a slice of bread at my in-laws last weekend and I thought, you know what would make this even better? Peanut butter. I mean, is there any question that the combination of peanut butter and chocolate is at the very center of American hearts, gullets and junk food aisles? And then I thought, But its January. Youre getting in a bathing suit in a month. This is terrible idea. But then I reasoned, Well, its not like I have to eat more than a spoonful. Surely, its possible so exercise some self-control around chocolate and peanuts. Guys, Im really funny sometimes, arent I?

So I started looking at recipes for homemade Nutella pardon me, the non-trademark-protected gianduja paste which is the smooth and shiny combination of hazelnuts and cocoa loved all over the world and was surprised to approaches, too, them all over the map. Some used honey, some began with a caramel but two techniques in particular caught my eye: one in which ground nuts were mixed with just cocoa, sugar and oil, quite close to the ingredient list of jarred Nutella and a very simple one from Martha Stewart, which relied on swe! etened c ondensed milk for its body. I decided to make the Martha version second, but never got there because my mother (who was hanging out for the afternoon) and I never got our spoons out of the food processor bowl from the first batch long enough to even consider if it was less than perfect.

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