Vegan Sugar-Free Hazelnut Spread

“Give your child a touch of joy at the breakfast table”.  This was Nutella’s catch phrase.
“Made with 56 roasted hazelnuts”.  Not to mention, enough sugar in one serving to get your child wired in seconds!

I never understood who was actually being fooled by these commercials, convinced that they are feeding their families a nutritional breakfast when slabbing this sugar spread onto a piece of white bread.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of Nutella in the past, but their whole healthy breakfast pitch is ridiculous.  I read a ‘fun fact’ on their website today, that 30,000,000,000g of Nutella was sold in Canada over the last decade.  If you lined up the jars end to end, that would almost stretch from coast to coast in Canada.  Crazy!

I also did the math, one serving (one tablespoon) of Nutella, contains 11 grams of sugar.  That translates to THREE teaspoons of sugar in one tablespoon of Nutella!  I wish labeling was clearer, not many people take (or have) the time to figure this out…

Anyway, on to my very satisfying, much healthier, sugar-free version.  I can’t stop licking the spoon.

Vegan Sugar-Free Hazelnut Recipe

Makes approximately 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients:

• 1 cup organic hazelnuts, roasted
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons organic cacao powder
• 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup almond milk (I used homemade)
• 1 tablespoon organic coconut oil
• a pinch of sea salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• Lay out hazelnuts onto a baking sheet and pop in the over for ten minutes.  Watch them carefully, oven temperatures vary and these can go from perfectly fine to burnt quickly.

• Remove hazelnuts from oven.  Using your fingers or a paper towel, remove skins from hazelnuts.  They will come off easily.  It doesn’t need to be perfect.

• Place hazelnuts in a food processor.  Process at high speed for 2-3 minutes until you have a paste.

• Add coconut oil and process for another minute, until it looks smooth.
• Add all remaining ingredients, process for another 2-3 minutes until you have a creamy texture.

• At this point it will be quite thin and liquidy.  Place into a jar (I use mason jars) and refrigerate for one hour hour.

• Remove from fridge.  It is now a spreadable texture.

• You will store this in the pantry, and it keeps fresh for about 2 weeks.  I like to make it in small batches so we never get to the point that it’s gone bad because we didn’t use it quickly enough.
• Spread onto your favourite baked goods, fresh fruit (like apple slices) or on sprouted grain bread.

• Be wary of small hands snatching hazelnuts from photoshoot.