“Skinny” Brownies? Tricks for treats!

Halloween demands chocolate!

As it happens, a very chocolaty recipe jumped right onto my screen just after Halloween, from Chew Out Loud.

Health-conscious bloggers like Vinny, however, might think this recipe seemed a tad high on sugar (2 1/2 cups). So I tried this recipe using stevia in place of sugar.

Chew’s method for working with chocolate, using boiling water and hot fat, worked wonderfully.

Figuring out how much stevia to use was challenging, though. I would have needed a cup and a quarter of the Stevia Sugar I usually use… and I didn’t have that much left in the jar. So I used the pure stevia powder I had on hand instead. I needed only 2 teaspoons of this stuff. I started off with just 1 teaspoon in case my math was off. The batter wasn’t sweet enough, so I added another teaspoon. The batter now tasted sweet but also a little bitter. This has happened with other batters I’ve made and the cookies turned out well. So I added a half cup of apple sauce to replace the bulk lost when I removed the sugar… and forged ahead.

Don’t over bake!

The result? Disappointment. Liquid fat bubbled up around the pan during baking. When I bit into my brownie, it was, well, dense. Maybe I baked them a bit too long – my toothpick came out clean and there should have been a few crumbs… But the sweetness was good, so I served these brownies with whipped cream to my dinner guests the next day. They all liked them, but the ladies left some behind – too rich…

So I ran the recipe through eaTracker. OMG. Who would ever want to know that each of my eight servings had 555 calories and 39 grams of fat?!? Even the sugar was too high per serving… from the 6 squares of semisweet chocolate, I guess. Also, could the super-dense texture have been the result of no baking powder?

I reworked my recipe with these thoughts in mind and tried again. I wanted the sugar to be around 5 grams per serving and the fat around 10 grams… and the taste, GREAT.

I replaced half the fat with apple sauce, adding fiber to replace the bulk normally occupied by sugar. I upped the unsweetened chocolate and reduced the semisweet chocolate. I used three whole eggs instead of 2 eggs plus 2 yolks. I lowered the flour and salt and added some baking powder. I increased the stevia and substituted coconut oil for butter.

With this new recipe, if you cut it into 16 servings, we approach my goal. If we make 32 pieces, we can enjoy chocolate with a guilt-free conscience!

Taste test result: “Good!”

But just how good is it? We put my skinny recipe up against my original from Chew’s. Both were tasty, neither one overly sweet. Chew’s brownie was dense and rich with flavor. Mine tasted just as chocolaty, and the sweetness from more stevia was a plus. The texture was dense, but lighter than Chew’s. There was no hint of apple, even in the skinny recipe, which had twice as much of the stuff.

Vinny says you CAN have the great taste of a chocolaty brownie and eat it too… with less than half the calories and no added sugar. It just takes a little know-how.

Skinny Halloween Choc-Choc-Chocolate Brownies

one 9×13 pan makes 16 (or 32) squares

1/3 cup (1 ounce) processed cocoa (unsweetened)
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons boiling water
3 ounces unsweetened good-quality chocolate, chopped fine
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used walnut oil)
2 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
3 large eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Stevia, equivalent to 2 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1 tablespoon of pure stevia)
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 1/4  cups (5.6 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4  teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
4 ounces  semisweet chocolate, cut into 1/2 inch chunks (Really! Keep them BIG)
ground pistachios to decorate (idea from The Plum Palate)

Skinny brownies

Put oven rack at second-to-lowest position and preheat to 350F.  Make foil sling:  Leave enough foil hanging over edges of pan to grab.  Cut corners on the foil and fold it into corners and up sides of pan.  Grease foil and set aside.

Whisk cocoa and boiling water together in large bowl until smooth.  Add unsweetened chocolate and whisk until chocolate melts.  Whisk in oil and melted coconut oil.  Whisk in eggs and vanilla.

Whiz salt, baking powder, stevia and flour in a food processor to mix evenly and add air. Fold into batter with spatula until just combined.

Fold in semisweet chocolate pieces.

Transfer batter into pan, spreading it into corners.  Bake for about 25-33 minutes, rotating pan halfway through.  It’s done when toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.  Do not over-bake, or brownies will be dry.

Toothpick should have crumbs

Transfer pan to wire rack and cool for half an hour.  Remove brownies from pan using foil sling and put them back on wire rack to cool completely.  Cut brownies into 16 or 32 squares.

How skinny are they?
Serving is 1/16th of the pan.

Calories (kcal)	187.3
Fat (g)	13.3
Saturated Fat (g)	6.0
Cholesterol (mg)	36.1
Sodium (mg)	69.1
Potassium (mg)	139.0
Carbohydrate (g)	17.6
Sugar (g)	6.8
Protein (g)	3.8
Vitamin A (RAE)	19.1
Calcium (mg)	33.2

This is as healthy as I can make them!

Auntie Oxidant Rides to the Rescue

Auntie Oxidant is hitch-hiking in your veggies. Give her a ride with this delicious creamed soup!

Auntie Oxidant is a kid’s best friend. Who wouldn’t want to have a powerful protector like her on their side? She’s a real fighter who guards our cells and disarms invaders that cause disease… good to have around.

Auntie O lounges about in fruits and veggies. You probably know some of her family already. Meet:

• Vitamin A – hiding in ORANGE fruits and veggies, like carrots and sweet potatoes
• Lycopene – swimming in cooked tomato dishes, like catchup
• Vitamin E  – holding hands with vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds
• Anthocyanin – showing off  in RED or BLUE foods, like beets and red carrots

Known in the science world as antioxidants, these nutrients protect cells from free radicals.

”The amount of antioxidants in your body is directly proportional to how long you will live.”
- Dr. Richard Cutler, former Director of the National Institute of Aging, Washington

Free radicals are trouble-makers – formed when oxygen molecules are ripped apart.

Oxygen comes into our bodies in the air we breath. It arrives in pairs of oxygen atoms, with each pair bound tightly into a molecule. We can’t do without the oxygen twins for more than a few seconds. They are essential to life.

But the twins have some powerful enemies. Smoking, alcohol, air pollution, infection, sunlight, radiation… all these things tear at the oxygen molecules, breaking the twins apart.

The separated oxygen atoms are freed at a price – they each lose one electron. The deprived oxygen atoms go on a rampage… stealing electrons from other molecules and damaging cells. Cancer, stroke, sunburn and even aging itself are triggered this way.

Antioxidants ride to the rescue. They use their own electrons to rope those crazy radicals in and tie them up before they can do harm. Without Auntie O, we sort of rust away, from the inside out… or in the case of sunburn, from the outside in!

The Bottom Line

Scientists agree that eating lots of fruits and vegetables lowers your risk of heart disease and certain cancers. A diet rich in veggies and fruit keeps you healthy, through and through.

If your kids won’t eat their veggies in chunks, try them on a delicious pureed soup. Why not start with Auntie O’s favorite, adapted from Cooking up a storm, dish by dish.

Get shopping, preferably at a farmers’ market

Auntie O’s Soup of the Day

CREAM OF ORANGE AND RED VEGGIES

Makes 14 cups

You need

2 tablespoons canola oil
2 red (or orange) carrots,* cut into cubes (about 1 pound or 450 grams)
1 butternut squash, peeled and de-seeded, and cut into cubes (about 1 1/2 pounds or 680 grams)
1 red onion, cut and diced (about 10 ounces or 300 grams)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tomatoes, diced (about 1 pound or 450 grams)
1 litre chicken stock
a little salt and paprika to taste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar or to taste, depending on acid in tomatoes
pumpkin seeds and basil to garnish

Get ready

1. Wash, peel, chop and measure the veggies. Tip: Slice the squash into one-inch rounds, then slice off the hard skin and take out the seeds. Now cut it into cubes.

Get set

 

1. In a soup pot on medium heat, stir fry the carrots for 10-15 minutes in the oil. My red carrots turned the soup a beautiful burgundy!
2. Add the butternut squash, together with the onions and the garlic, and stir fry for 10 minutes longer
3. Add the tomatoes, and cook 2 minutes more
4. Add the chicken stock – bring to a boil
5. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes or until the veggies are squishy
6. Switch off the stove – let the mixture cool for 5-10 minutes

Go!

1. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor, or use a hand blender right in the pot on the stove top (the easiest)
2. Serve warm, topped with basil and pumpkin seeds, if you like

Sources

• The free radical theory of aging matures. Physiol Rev. 1998 Apr;78(2):547-81.
• Protective effect against sunburn of combined systemic ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and d-alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E). J Am Acad Dermatol. 1998 Jan;38(1):45-8.
• Plasma and lung macrophage responsiveness to carotenoid supplementation and ozone exposure in humans. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;58(12):1571-9.

* Red carrots have been grown in Turkey for centuries. Their color remains stable and adds a lovely burgundy glow to your soup. You can find them at farmers markets or veggies stores, sold as heritage carrots. They are even healthier than orange carrots because of the special antioxidant they contain,  anthocyanin. If you can’t find any red carrots, orange ones work too.

Magnesium Battles the Evil Stroke

A plateful of Magnesium

Are your grandparents looking a little worn around the edges? Maybe you see them filling up on junk food or puffing away on cigarettes too often?

If so, they could be setting themselves up for a medical catastrophe known as Stroke. Holy smokes! That could be serious. Is there anything you can do to help?

If you’ve struck out asking them to quit smoking (a very hard thing to do… but oh so healthy), maybe you can get them to stock up on foods that are high in the superhero Magnesium (Mg).

Magnesium, a mineral found in some foods, has just been proven to fight off the scary Stroke.

The most common kind of stroke happens when the blood thickens enough to form a clot, which blocks a blood vessel in the brain. Researchers at the Swedish Karolinska Institute found that the risk of older folks suffering this kind of problem was reduced by 9% for each 100 milligrams of magnesium they eat each day.

Researchers think it may be because Magnesium helps lower blood pressure.

Get ready to be healthy. Chop, measure, mash, and mix before you start cooking.

Here are some foods that have mega-loads of Magnesium. Put a few of them on the menu every day.

• Green leafy vegetables, like spinach, kale, collard greens, and broccoli.
• Nuts and seeds. Pumpkin and sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds and cashews are good choices.
• Whole grains, like brown rice, oat bran cereal, and whole grain breads.
• Beans. Black beans are a particularly good source, with 120 mg of Magnesium in one cup.
• Fish. Scallops, halibut, and oysters are all good sources of Magnesium. Choose sustainably raised fish when possible.

Vinny’s readers will already have learned about most of these healthy foods. Click on the links above to find out more.

Try the recipe below for a dinner packed full of tasty Magnesium. You won’t be sorry! It’s awesomely delicious. Isla says: “The outside and the insides of black beans are yummy!” Only a four-year-old would think to dissect a black bean, which she went on to eat daintily, one by one, off the end of her fork.

A magnesium smorgasbord, to battle the bullies that bring on a visit from Stroke
SCALLOPS WITH BLACK BEAN SAUCE

The part of the scallop we eat is the large muscle found inside this beautiful shell fish (royalty-free image)

Ingredients for 2-3 servings

1 pound scallops

1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon stevia sugar (or ordinary sugar or honey)
Pinch of pepper
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon Balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon black beans (or black bean paste)
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 fresh green chili, finely chopped (optional, especially if serving kids)
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger root
2 green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Scallops marinating

Prepare scallops

•    Rinse scallops in cool water. Drain and pat dry. If scallops are large, cut in half (across the middle, to make each piece skinnier).
•    Marinate scallops with soy sauce, stevia, pepper, cornstarch, salt, and balsamic vinegar for 30 minutes.

Prepare black bean paste

•    Rinse black beans
•    Add garlic, chilies,  and ginger root
•    mix well and mash with a spoon.

Put it all together

•    Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a 10-inch skillet.
•    Add three-quarters of the black bean paste, and stir fry for 1 minute.
•    Add onions and bell peppers and stir fry for about 5 minutes.
•    Add marinated scallops and cook until scallops turn white, about 5 minutes.
•    Add the rest of the black bean paste and cook for 1 minute.

Serve

•    Sprinkle with sesame oil
•    Serve with steamed rice mixed with more cooked black beans and a side of  steamed broccoli.

Tasty, chalk full of magnesium,  and oh so good for keeping Stroke at bay:).

Magnesium in a pan

References

• Here’s a tip of the hat to Cooks.com for the above recipe idea.
• More about magnesium in foods…
• High Magnesium foods slide show

Raison d’etre

A whole bunch of raisins!

Once upon a time there was a bunch of grapes. They spent way too long in the sun and ended up as raisins. Did you know? Raisins are just dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world. You can eat raisins raw or use them in cooking, baking and brewing.

Raisins are usually dried in the sun. But they can also be dipped in water or put into driers that suck the air out of them. “Golden raisins” are Sultanas, which are a type of white grape. They’re treated with a gas called sulfur dioxide, and dried under a flame to give them their lovely yellow color.

Kids like raisins because they are naturally sweet. Yet they fight the  bacteria in the mouth that make holes in your teeth!

Use raisins with whole grain cereals for added goodness. Throw them into a mix with nuts and seeds and other dried fruit for a wholesome snack. Or eat them by the handful, all by themselves.

Keep reading for everything you ever wanted to know about the amazing raisin, a good “reason to be”… healthy!

All about raisins

• Raisins come in a rainbow of colors,  including green, black, blue, purple, and yellow.

• Seedless varieties include the Sultana (also known as Thompson Seedless in the USA) and Flame grapes.

• Currants are miniature raisins that are dark in color (nearly black) and have a tart, tangy flavor.

• Several varieties of raisins are produced in Asia and, in the West, are only available at ethnic specialty grocers. Check them out! Green raisins are produced in Iran.

•  In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada the word “raisin” is reserved for the dried large dark grape, with “sultana” being a dried large white grape, and “currant” being a dried small Black Corinth grape.

• Raisins range from about 67% to 72% sugars by weight, most of which is fructose and glucose.

• They also contain about 3% protein and 3.5% dietary fiber.

•  Raisins, like prunes and apricots, are also high in certain antioxidants, but have a lower vitamin C content than fresh grapes.

• Raisins are low in sodium and contain no cholesterol.

• New research has shown, despite having a high concentration of sugars, raisins fight bacteria in the mouth that cause cavities and gum disease.

Eat raisins and live happily ever after! The end.

Credits: Photo is courtesy of Foodimentary!

Nuts to you, cowboy

Ke-mo-sah-bee! “Trusted friend”

In a recent blog we talked about the goodness of hazel nuts. We even used hazelnuts to make some reasonably healthy homemade Nutella! If you think about it, Hazelnut and  Acorn could be twins.

The Nut twins: Acorn…

And his sister Hazel Nut

If an acorn has enough power under its little cap to sprout a giant oak tree, just think what if could do for you if you were to eat it! It’s not a secret. Even as long ago as the early days of the wild west, folks knew the power inside those tough little shells. Cowboys like the Lone Ranger, taught by  his Native American partner Tonto,  grew strong on acorns. They used acorn meal as flour, as an ingredient in mush, or pounded with meat, fat, and berries to make pemmican.

But there’s a catch. All the goodness of acorns is hidden behind  an enemy known as Tannin. Our forefathers put their crop of dried, shelled and ground acorns in bags and left them for days in a swift-running stream. This process washed the harmful tannins  away. A faster way is to boil the nuts, toss the darkened water containing the tannins away,  replace it with fresh water, and continue until the water remains clear. Tannins can ruin your kidneys if you’re not careful.

Maybe that’s why acorns are not so popular these days. They’re just too much trouble, when there are lots of other great-tasting nuts around for the taking. Acorn’s twin, Hazel Nut, is a good example.

Nothing’s like freshly ground nut butter

But there are so many more. Pistachios, almonds, walnuts, chestnuts, and even the lowly peanuts  are only a few of the delicious and healthy nuts we can find by going to our neighborhood grocery store. There we can get them in the shell or out, plain or roasted, salted or spiced, whole, sliced or ground, or, best of all… made into nut butter.

Did you know? Breaking news… Nuts and seeds are one of nature’s belly fat killers. Adding these to your diet is a great strategy.

Hi Ho Silver… Away! Who WAS that masked man?

Just remember… all good things in moderation. Nuts pack lots of nutrients but at the same time provide a lot of calories ounce for ounce. I say keep the serving size down to a handful a day, and live long and prosper.

Happy Trails Snack Mix (Listen to the song while you mix this up )

Good cowboys and cowgirls need a little something to tide them over as they ride the range.  Trail mix is much better for you than dastardly useless chips (or “crisps” as they’re known in the UK). For those times when hunger pangs strike, mix together 1/4 cup of any of these things you have in your pantry:

peanuts
hazel nuts
shelled pistachios
sunflower seeds
chia seeds
dried cranberries
dried currents
dried apricots, dates and/or mangos, chopped
any other nut, seed, or dried fruit you have in your cupboard…

For every five ingredients, you can add 1/4 cup chocolate chips, if you really have to. It’s probably better to leave them out, but if you use them, choose DARK chocolate. The dark stuff contains antioxidants (cancer fighters). You may as well get some benefit from your sugar hit.

To serve

Eat a handful whenever you feel weak from hunger and your next meal is more than a half hour away.

Happy trails to you, and may we meet again!

Jubilation! A royal cake for Canada Day

Oh, Canada!

Our home and native land is celebrating a birthday! Isla says: We need to bake a cake. Of  course we do. I should have thought of that myself!

First, I thought about making a Victoria sponge cake, named after an old by-gone queen. But it  doesn’t make the grade as a food suitable for posting here, where we like to feature healthy eating for kids of all ages… Darn!

Then I made a wonderful discovery. Canada’s queen (Queen Elizabeth, of course, who is also, not so coincidentally, Queen of England) came up with a perfectly delicious cake  around the time of the last world war that should have done very nicely. I made a couple of adjustments to the sugar and fat components (see above comment pertaining to healthy eating ), and away we went! Sadly, The Queen mustn’t know how to bake very well… My cake turned out flat as a pancake. Or perhaps it was my adjustments???

Whatever, I had two options: make another cake and stack them, as I explained in my directions, below. Or ice the single layer I had already and call it a Canada Day pizza.  Regardless, I’ve  adjusted the technique a little, which you will see reflected in my instructions, in an attempt to get the cake to rise a bit more successfully. If you try it, let me know how it comes out?

I’ve updated the icing, too,  using goat’s cheese and low-fat cream cheese, based on an idea I found on WordPress recently.  Then I smothered the whole thing in raspberries, long-known as a super food, and super good too. This buys nicely into the pizza idea.

Then Isla had the best suggestion ever: let’s make it a flag cake! So the pizza became a very respectable looking flag, and the end result was fit for a queen… Or for a country’s birthday party.

Have fun on Canada’s birthday and dig in to the best healthiest birthday cake ever!

Canada Day Flag Cake

Vinny’s Jubilation Cake, with a polite curtsy to Queen Elizabeth

• 6 oz (170 g) dates, chopped and with any stones removed
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup (240 ml) water
• 1/3 cup (100 g) honey
• 2.7 oz  (75 g) butter, softened (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) canola or olive oil
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring
•  1 and 3/4 cup (190 g) plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 150 g chopped pecans (optional)

Topping

5 oz chevre (goat cheese), at room temperature
4  oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1 lemon, zested
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup maple syrup, in honor of Canada Day (or icing sugar if you want a pure white background for your flag)
1 pint fresh raspberries or any red berry in season
1/3 cup raspberry jam (if making the layer cake)
1/3 cup whipped cream (if making the layer cake)
1 tablespoon raspberry jam (to paint the maple leaf)

How to mix it all up
1) Preheat oven to 350°F.
2) prepare two 8×12″ pans by spraying them with oil and lining them with parchment paper. You only need one pan for the pizza flag.
3) Combine in a small pot the dates and hot water. Bring to a boil and allow dates to bubble for a few minutes, stirring until the dates become sticky, like a thick jam. Add the baking powder, mix slightly, and stand back! It makes a good show.
4) In a large bowl, cream together the butter, oil, and honey. Add the beaten egg and vanilla and beat until creamy.
5) Whiz the flour, the second amount of baking powder and salt in a food processor for 30 seconds. Fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Pour in date mixture, and mix all together gently.
6) Pour batter into one of the pans. Transfer pan to the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and let stand.
7) For the layer cake, make another batch of cake dough and bake a second cake in the second pan. You can freeze the cakes at this point wrapped in tin foil. Thaw and frost them on the big day, as follows.

Presentation
1) Cream all icing ingredients together in a medium bowl.
2) For the layer cake, spread 1/4 cup raspberry jam over the first layer. Then spread 1/3 cup whipped cream over the jam. Top with the second layer.
3) Spread the cheesy icing smoothly over the top of the cake and along the sides.
4) Make a cutout of a maple leaf. I reduced this image to half size.

Soggy Maple Leaf cutout

5) Dilute 1 tablespoon raspberry jam with a little warm water or lemon juice until it is spreadable. Use the cutout to paint a maple leaf in the centre of the cake with jam, then remove the cutout. Make a  row of raspberries on each end of the cake. Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day, Everybody! And no, this isn’t Vinny!

Hazel tames the giant Nutella

Giant Nutellas lurk about in the strangest places. Here they are, hiding on the bottom shelf in Le Bon Marché in Paris!

Hazel is deeply wise. She holds the secrets of the earth within her. Love her and she’ll tell you where to quench your thirst… for water and for knowledge. What’s more, she’ll bless you with a silver tongue for telling others what you’ve learned.

So it’s said. But is there any truth behind the power of our elf  Hazel?

Here’s what we know for sure: Hazel harnesses the power of the nut. And nuts are powerhouses of nutrition. Eating a handful of nuts a day can help prevent heart problems and weight gain. That’s why nuts are key players in many popular weight-loss programs these days.

Raw hazelnuts are half the price of the roasted, skinned ones. I’m the miserly sort, so I went for the cheapo ones.

Would you believe there are 130 hazelnuts in just one of those giant kilogram jars of Nutella? There is also a heap of skim milk and cocoa powder thrown into the mix. How can anything with so much fiber, vitamins C, B, and  E, protein, folate, and calcium be anything but good?

Well, Nutella has its detractors. For one, there is a large dose of sugar – 11 grams in one tablespoon. And then, there is the whole palm oil thing. This vegetable oil has 41% saturated fat (the bad kind, but just half what palm kernel oil has….) and no trans fats (the worst offender). So maybe palm oil is only half bad? The jury is still out, but I think there could be a place for modest amounts of palm oil  in our food.

However…  health is not the only concern opponents to palm oil have. Over-farming of the rainforest is threatening endangered animals, like the gorgeous orangutan. Our elf  Hazel would definitely be sympathetic to this cause!

Momma orangutan and baby. Photo courtesy of harrymoon, FlickR Commons

I just LUV Nutella, though, and I’ve even used it as an ingredient in my healthiest cookies ever (the recipe is in my book). So what is a nutty orangutan-loving Nutella fan to do? Well, if you have the time and the inclination, you can make your own hazelnut spread. It’s not hard if you have a food processor. You get to say how much sugar is enough, and you can simply leave out the palm oil or use olive oil instead.

Vinny’s Homemade Hazelnut Chocolate “Nutella”

1 1/2 cup whole hazelnuts
1/4 cup (50 grams ) cocoa (dutch-processed is less bitter)
1  cup skim milk
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup skim  milk powder
2 tablespoons  maple syrup (optional, use stevia instead and unsweetened chocolate rather than bittersweet to lower the sugar by half again)
pinch salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 heaping cup (200 grams) chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, or chips
3/4 cup (125 grams) chopped milk chocolate, or chips

Warm hazelnut sauce on eggy pancakes with strawberries

On a rimmed baking sheet, toast the nuts in a 400ºF oven for 10 minutes, or until their skins begin to pop. Shake them up half way through. Then keep an eye on them, because they burn easily. Burnt hazelnuts taste yucky!!! Pour the hot nuts onto an old (but clean) tea towel, gather the corners into a bundle and rub the nuts together like mad. You want to rub off as much of their skins as possible. This is hard work. Maybe that’s why the roasted nuts were twice the price! While they’re warm, blend the nuts in a food processor until they go from finely ground to pasty.

Meanwhile, warm the milk, powdered milk, maple syrup, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt in a small saucepan. Watch it and stir, because the milk can easily burn on the bottom. Remove from heat as soon as it starts to boil.

In a glass or stainless steel bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Take off the heat a little before it’s completely melted, because you don’t want it to curdle.

Add the melted chocolate to the ground nuts and process the mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the warm milk mixture bit by bit, and process until the sauce is well blended. It will be more liquid than Nutella, but don’t worry. It gets thick when it is thoroughly cool.

While it’s still warm, you can strain it into jars if you like it smoother rather than nutty. But I like the extra fiber. Makes about 2 1/4 cups. Keep it in the fridge.

Vinny served the hazelnut sauce on eggy pancakes and poured some over strawberries. He also uses it in his chocolate cookies, melting moments. The spread works fine without palm oil. Hazel the elf, in her usual charming, understanding, socially conscious, honest and tolerant way… says, “Enjoy!”

Vinny’s homemade hazelnut and chocolate “Nutella” spread gets a thumbs up!

Yield: About 2 1/4 cups or 36 tablespoons.
Nutrition information per tablespoon (From eaTracker, by Dietitians of Canada):
98 Calories
6 g fat (including 1.8 g saturated fat, no trans fat)
9.6 g carbs (including 1.2 g fibre and 7.6 g sugar)
2.4 g protein
19 mg sodium (salt), 116 mg potassium, 53.8 mg calcium
21.5 RAE Vit A, 7.4 DFE folate

Recipe adapted from The Family Kitchen. If you want to compare nutrients with the commercial Nutella by Ferrero, here’s their nutrition label.