Chocolate and Hazelnut spread

User Rating: 5 / 5

Truly delicious and so easy to make.

Mix the hazelnuts and milk in a pan and bring to the boil. Cook for 5 minutes, by which time some of the milk will have evaporated.
Remove from the heat, add the powdered milk, hazelnut oil and blend to form a smooth and even mixture.
Break the chocolate into squares and put straight into the mixture. After 2 minutes it will have melted and you will be able to beat the mixture with a wooden spoon till smooth.
Keep in a sealed pot in a cool place.

Chocolate curls

User Rating: 5 / 5

These are great for all kinds of decoration and you can make lots of different sizes.

For 200g :

200g cooking chocolate
1 bain-marie
Sheets of cellophane
or ‘rhodoid’ paper
(a type of thick cellophane
used in patsisserie)
Cooking thermometer
1 tray or baking sheet

Grate the chocolate and melt in the bain-marie – do not allow the temperature to exceed 50°.
Cut the cellophane into strips of about 10X10cm.
To ‘temper’ the chocolate, leave it to cool to 27/28° then re-heat to 31/32°. This operation is necessary to prevent the cocoa butter from separating out from the cocoa mass.
Using a spatula, spread stripes of chocolate onto the prepared cellophane. At this stage you can choose between making them thicker or thinner and wider or narrower; in practice the thicker the band the more curls you get while the thinner the band the more broken bits.
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As soon as you have rolled out the chocolate, roll the cellophane to make tubes 1 to 2cm in diameter. Leave to cool on the tray.
When the chocolate has hardened, unroll the cellophane. Now you can make your curls or use the thickest as tubes provided you only rolled the cellophane once.