Nutella Caramel Swirled Brownies—World Nutella Day

It’s World Nutella Day today!  You might remember back in August (or you might need this reminder), when I made and posted a bunch of recipes from Shelby’s blog, The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch for The Secret Recipe Club.  Normally, we were just to make one recipe for the blog we were assigned that month, but Shelby and her blog are one of my favorites and we are good friends, so just for fun, I spent that whole month after getting my assignment, making as many recipes from her blog that I could during that time.  Here's that post—look for something with Nutella among all the deliciousness. 

One of the recipes I made from her blog then were my version of her Peanut Butter Caramel Swirled Brownies.  After getting things measured and ready to make her brownies, I realized I was out of peanut butter, so I did what any smart person would do—I made the caramel with Nutella instead.  These brownies are so good.  You might be thinking that you thought I don’t eat sugar and gluten anymore.  Well, I don’t, mostly.  These brownies became an occasion where it was necessary (for quality control purpose, you understand) that I taste the caramel AND then ultimately a bite of the brownie that I then topped with vanilla ice cream, drizzled with chocolate syrup (next time save some Nutella caramel for the brownie sundae!) and some hazelnuts.  I only took a small bite….see….

Don’t be intimidated by the idea of making caramel, this is so easy, even more so if you measure out the ingredients first and have everything ready.  When I made these brownies last August, I made a full batch, which is a 9x13 inch pan.  For the remaking of them today, I halved the recipe—the ingredients are all perfectly easy to halve, so you decide how much Nutella caramel you want and how many brownies.

 

Nutella Caramel Swirled Brownies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

Nutella Caramel Sauce:

½ cup heavy cream

¼ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup water

½ cup (148 grams) Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread), warmed slightly

1 tablespoon corn syrup

Pinch of salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat cream on low heat in a small saucepan (or in a microwave safe measuring glass) until hot (just barely simmering). In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and water and heat over medium-high heat. Do not stir it. Let it cook until amber brown (2-3 minutes). Slowly whisk the hot cream into the sugar until smooth and let it cook for 1 minute. When you stir the cream into the caramelized sugar, it will bubble a lot. Don’t worry, just keep stirring. After 1 minute, remove from the heat and whisk in the warm Nutella (it combines better when it is heated up a bit—just microwave it in a small bowl for 20-30 seconds and stir), corn syrup, salt and vanilla. Stir together until well combined and smooth. Set it aside to cool while you prepare the brownie batter.

Brownies:

1 cup unsalted butter, melted

3 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9x13 pan by lining it with tin foil (I prefer nonstick foil). Spray lightly with cooking spray. Set aside.  In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the melted butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until well combined. Add vanilla extract. Set aside.  In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder and salt. Whisk together. Fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Pour into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Drop spoonsful of the Nutella caramel in dollops over the brownie batter. Drag a knife through the batter and the caramel to swirl. Don’t do it too much or you’ll lose the swirled effect. Bake the brownies for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with crumbs on it and not wet batter. Cool completely before cutting. Serve individually or as a base for brownie sundaes with ice cream, chocolate syrup (or more of the Nutella caramel if you didn’t use it all) and some toasted hazelnuts.

I mean, come on, don’t these look like great brownies?  If you are a Nutella lover, like so many, you will love this caramel and these brownies, they stand alone great, but also make an awesome brownie sundae.

Thanks to Sara at Ms Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso for their inspiration and the start up of World Nutella Day.  Check it out for hundreds of mouth-watering Nutella recipes!

Check out all the Nutella goodness on my blog!

Chocolate Hazelnut Bombs—World Nutella Day

I couldn’t forget that today is World Nutella Day.  Unfortunately, I’m not eating Nutella right now (no sugar for me).  I know, SO SAD.  If it will help my health, it’s all worth it, right?  I still just HAD to make something with that chocolate-hazelnut combination, so I whipped up some quick, healthy Chocolate Hazelnut Bombs.  They are the bomb, hence the name.

These are a perfect treat for me (and anyone else!).  They happen to be refined sugar free, gluten free, grain free (which means Paleo), but they certainly have that taste to remind me of Nutella deliciousness. 

Chocolate Hazelnut Bombs (Grain Free, Refined Sugar Free, Paleo), by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups hazelnuts

4 tablespoons raw cacao powder (or cocoa powder)

3/4 cup pitted dates (chopped to check for any seeds!)

2-3 tablespoons raw honey (to taste)

2 tablespoons almond milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Put hazelnuts on baking sheet spread in one layer.  Bake for 8 minutes.  Let cool slightly.  Remove as much of the skins as possible by putting the nuts on a towel, wrapping it up and squeezing the nuts inside the towel.  Most of the skins will come off.  You don’t need to worry about the stubborn skins. 

When the nuts are separated from the skins, put them in a food processor.  Pulse until the nuts are coarsely ground.  Add the dates and continue pulsing until it starts to combine.  Add the cacao/cocoa powder and one tablespoons of honey and pulse until all combined and the nuts break down even more.  Add another tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of almond milk.  Pulse again and check for consistency.  The mixture will start to ball up around the blade.  Taste and decide if you’d like a bit more honey and/or almond milk to combine it all together.  Roll in to about one inch balls.  Makes 16-20.  Keep refrigerated if you’re not eating them.

Check out all my World Nutella Day posts from years past. 

2013--Chocolate Hazelnut Nutella Cookies (Some of these were sandwiches with Nutella, like in the photo.)

2012--Pretzel Nutella Chunk Cookies and Nutella Frosted Nutella Brownies

2011--Nutella Banana Oatmeal and Nutella Truffle Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies

2010—I missed it!

2009--Chocolate Graham Cracker Nutella S'mores

Sheesh, after looking at all these Nutella treats, I need to go have one or ten of my Chocolate Hazelnut Bombs.

Check out World Nutella Day on Facebook and Twitter #nutelladay and other social media sites. 

Chocolate Hazelnut Nutella Cookies for World Nutella Day 2013

Today is World Nutella Day!  A couple of bloggers a few years back decided their love for Nutella needed to be known, shared and united.  February 5 was the chosen day and here we are!  I’ve enjoyed over the last four years or so playing around with delicious things for this day and this one is no exception.  These look like meager, little brown cookies, but the punch of Nutella taste with the crunchy hazelnuts in a soft, chewy cookie is delicious!

I made most of them just as simple, smaller (2  1/2 inch) cookies.  But they really do taste like the perfect hit of Nutella and the fresh roasted hazelnuts are the perfect touch.  I did play around with a little of the dough and made some bigger cookies.  They seemed like they really needed more than just to be bigger.  So---I made them in to a sandwich, and of course, they were sandwiched with NUTELLA!

I had to take a bite.

I will make my oldest, Scott, finish the cookie when he gets home from school.  I would love to indulge, but am still on my not-much-sugar kick.  sigh

Chocolate Hazelnut Nutella Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

4 ounces good, dark chocolate chips (I use Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips)

6 ounces Nutella, divided use

10 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter

½ cup (2 ¼ ounces) all purpose flour

3 tablespoons (15 grams) natural cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (125 grams) granulated sugar

½ cup skinned and toasted, chopped hazelnuts

Spread 4 ounces of Nutella on plastic wrap about ¼ inch thick. Lay it flat on a plate or baking sheet and put it in the freezer (this can be done anytime ahead of making the cookies, you probably want to freeze it for at least a half hour.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate chips, 2 ounces of Nutella and the butter in a microwave safe glass bowl in 20-30 second intervals (or in a saucepan on the stove). Stir to combine well. Let cool 5 minutes.

Whisk together in a smaller bowl the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla. Whisk in the sugar and stir until well combined. Add the melted chocolate mixture to the eggs and sugar and stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Working quickly (because the frozen Nutella melts quickly), remove it from the freezer and cut in into small pieces. Put the Nutella chunks and chopped hazelnuts in the cookie dough and carefully stir it together, folding it lightly. It’s okay if melts and looks like it’s making more swirls in the dough than remaining chunky. Scoop mounds of dough onto baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for about 11 minutes, you can go a little longer for a crispier cookies, but these are soft and chewy. Makes about 40 cookies that are about 2 ½ inches round.

Confession, okay, I made the cookies yesterday and ate a whole one of these little ones. 

Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso are the two masterminds behind making this day a WORLD holiday. ;)

You can find hundreds of Nutella recipes from years past on the World Nutella Day website or check out the Facebook page.

Here’s a look at some of my past post involving Nutella in all its delicious chocolate and hazelnut glory.

Nutella Brownies

Pretzel Nutella Chunk Cookies and some Frosted Nutella Brownies

Nutella Truffle Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies

Nutella Banana Oatmeal

 

Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie

Chocolate Graham Cracker Nutella S'mores

And a little stroll down memory lane with this little guy, Sam is almost six now, but he’ll always be my baby and he still loves Nutella!

Would you look at this face!

Happy World Nutella Day and grab a spoon!

World Nutella Day 2012—Pretzel Nutella Chunk Cookies and Nutella Frosted Nutella Brownies

Today is World Nutella Day!  Nutella lovers all over the world are celebrating their love of Nutella Chocolate Hazelnut Spread and sharing it on their blogs, on Twitter and on Facebook.  I’ve joined in the love the last few years and couldn’t resist doing so again.

Thanks go to World Nutella Day creators Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso.  They came up with this great idea and it’s been delicious to participate in it. 

I made two delicious Nutella-filled treats to share today.  First—Pretzel Nutella Chunk Cookies.  Darn—these are GOOD!  The only chocolate in the cookies are chunks of Nutella.  Chunks, you ask?  I never even thought about making Nutella into pieces and recently saw this brilliant idea from Recipe Boy.  This cute guy is right now better known as the son of the ever-popular Lori from Recipe Girl.  He started his own blog a few months ago and came up with the idea recently of freezing Nutella and cutting it in to chunks.  I had no idea that was possible.  But guess what—it works!

Spoon some Nutella out onto a foil or plastic wrap lined baking sheet and spread it out evenly, mine was probably between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick.  Set it in the freezer until it hardens.  Check out the link above for Recipe Boy’s cookies and tutorial on the Nutella chunks. (I’m giving all credit for this Nutella chunk idea to Recipe Boy because I’ve never seen or heard of it before seeing his cookies recently.)  When is Nutella going to come up with Nutella chips in a bag?!  These chunks need to be carefully stirred in to a cookie dough straight from the freezer and then immediately baked.  They do thaw out a little.  I stirred them into the dough, formed them into cookie dough balls and kept the waiting cookie sheet in the freezer while one sheet was already baking.  Worked great!  Tasted even better!  At our house, what goes better with Nutella than dipping pretzels into it?  I found the cutest little pretzel balls recently and just knew they had to somehow be part of a cookie—and this was perfect—sweet and salty in a cookie=YUM!

Pretzel Nutella Chunk Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys! (inspired by Recipe Boy)

1/2 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon cake flour*

1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons bread flour*

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

5 tablespoons (2  1/2 oz.) unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

1/2 a large egg (I weigh the egg in grams on the scale and remove half—or you could whisk an egg and remove 2 tablespoons as one egg is 1/4 cup)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup pretzel balls (or broken pretzels)

1/2 cup (4 ounces) Nutella chunks**

**Make the Nutella chunks ahead of time.  Spread about 1/2 cup Nutella on a foil lined baking sheet to about 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick.  Set in the freezer for about an hour to set.  Remove from freezer and cut in to chunks.  Keep the chunks in the freezer until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

In a medium sized bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Whisk together. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, then add the two sugars and beat until well combined.  Scrape the sides of the bowl.  Add the egg and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.  Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and beat just until combined.  Stir the pretzel balls and Nutella into the dough.  Scoop into about 2 tablespoonsful size dough balls onto baking sheets about 2 inches apart.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet a couple minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. 

*You could probably use just all purpose flour in places of the cake flour and bread flour, but my favorite chocolate chip cookies use cake and bread flours and I love it that way.

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I recently posted some great Nutella Brownies.  They were as “plain” as Nutella brownies can be, but they were sure good!  In honor of World Nutella Day, I decided to kick them up a notch.  A little Nutella frosting and some hazelnuts throughout the brownies did the trick.  Wow!  These were super rich and even more delicious than the “plain” Nutella Brownies!

Instead of the regular brownie recipe that is made in an 8x8 inch pan, I halved these just to try them out and because I wasn’t sure we could eat all of them at the time.  The half recipe was baked in a 9x5 inch bread pan.  They were so good and the recipe would be super easy to double for the 8x8 inch pan!

Nutella Frosted Nutella Brownies (small batch), by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup melted unsalted butter

1/4 cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped

Frosting:

1/4 cup Nutella

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1/2 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon hazelnuts, toasted and chopped for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line a 9x5 inch bread pan with foil, spray lightly with cooking spray.  (I love the non-stick foil that is available!).  Let the sides of the foil hand over the edge to easily remove the brownies from the pan for cutting them.

Melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl, set aside.  Let sit to cool slightly while you do the next few steps.

Combine the flour and salt in a small bowl.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the egg, Nutella, brown sugar and vanilla.  Beat together for a minute or two.   Scrape the side of the bowl.  With the mixer on low speed, add half the flour, then half the melted butter.  Add the rest of the flour, then end with the rest of the butter and mix just until all combined.  Stir in the chopped hazelnuts.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.

Bake for 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.  Cool in the pan until completely cool on a wire rack.  Then, if you have time, or can wait that long, chill the brownies in the refrigerator for a couple hours.  Make the Nutella frosting.  Combine in a medium sized bowl the Nutella and powdered sugar.  Add the cream and stir together well.  If you think it needs a little more moisture, add the milk until desired consistency and spreadable.  Spread the frosting over the brownies and sprinkle some hazelnuts over the top.  Remove from the pan with the foil edges and cut the brownies still laying on the foil on a cutting board.  (I think brownies taste better chilled, but you can also serve/eat them at room temperature.)

Here are a couple of my favorite past Nutella posts!

Nutella Truffle Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies

Homemade Chocolate Graham Cracker Nutella S'mores

Nutella Banana Oatmeal

Nutella Chocolate Cream Pie

World Nutella Day! Nutella Banana Oatmeal and Don’t Forget The Cookies!

Oh my goodness—I just made what might be some of my favorite oats for breakfast.   I’ve never made them before and just made it up as I went along.  Lucky for you, I wrote down what I did. ;)  I did this in celebration of World Nutella Day!  What a way to start my day.  Well, actually, I’ve already worked out on the treadmill for an hour and now I feel like I should go do another hour.  But it was worth every bite.

 

While I think that oatmeal isn’t the best photographed food, it’s what is in this one that is just SO good!  If you like oats for breakfast and if you consider yourself any kind of Nutella liker/lover/respecter, whatever, you need to try this oatmeal.

Nutella Banana Oatmeal, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1 cup quick oats (you can also use old fashioned oats)

1  3/4 cup skim milk

pinch salt

1 small banana, chopped

2 tablespoons Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread

hazelnuts, chopped (optional topping)

banana, sliced (optional topping)

More Nutella for swirling on top (not optional) ;)

Over medium heat in a small saucepan, combine oats, salt, milk, chopped banana and 2 tablespoons Nutella.  Whisk together.  Stir occasionally.  As it comes to a boil, stir constantly for 1-2 minutes until thickened. 

Spoon out about 3/4 cup (eyeball it) of oats into serving bowl.  Add Nutella swirl on top (it’s easier to swirl if you soften it in the microwave for a few seconds).  Sprinkle with sliced banana and chopped nuts.  Pour a little extra milk around the sides.  Stir and eat! (Makes 2-3 servings.)

Try this for breakfast.  If oatmeal isn’t your thing—then try the Nutella Truffle Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies (recipe included on that link) I posted a few days ago.  Heavenly!

 

Thanks to Sara at Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle at Bleeding Espresso for starting such a yummy thing.  Check out the Nutella cakes they posted on their blogs.