Notella

I like chocolate. I like nuts. Stands to reason that I like the spreads that combine the two. A couple of slices of wholemeal toast with choc-nut spread on makes a decent breakfast, and there's bound to be a nutritionist standing around someplace who, in exchange for funding, will tell you it's good for you. 

The trouble is, I like good dark chocolate and the spreads are always too milky and too sugary.

Luckily, chef Bill Grainger came up with a home-made spread recipe which happily handled being played with – using a mixture of chocolates, adding a little more cream and a little less sugar – until it was exactly what I wanted.

You’ll need sterilized jars to store this; used 300g jam or marmalade jars are ideal. Wash them well in hot water, them boil a kettle and pour boiling water into and over the jars and the lids. Empty them – use an oven glove – and let them dry in the oven while you roast the hazelnuts. Two jars is enough for this quantity, which lasts me a couple of weeks.

The chocolate is up to you: I use 100g of high cocoa content (70%) choc and make up the weight with bog-standard Cadbury Dairy Milk or even supermarket block milk, but use whatever you’re happy with. Bear in mind that high-cocoa chocolate will have more oils in it so if it’s overheated it'll separate that much quicker. If it splits you’ll be left with a lump of very hard, bitter chocolate and a load of excess oil, especially as it’ll mix with the oils from the nuts, so be careful.

150 g chocolate

100 g blanched skinless hazelnuts

60 g unsalted butter

2 tablespoons caster sugar

150 ml double cream

a little salt

Preheat the oven to 180/350/gas 4.

Spread the nuts out on a baking tray and roast them for about ten minutes or until they’re just turning light golden.

Let them cool for a minute then put then into a blender and grind them finely; you may need to give the machine a shake to get the bigger bits moving around. If you fancy a bit of a crunch in your spread, leave a few larger pieces unground. Add the sugar and blitz it with the nuts for another minute or so. You should end up with something a bit like coarse flour.

While the nut mixture cools, break the chocolate into small pieces. Put the butter and cream into a saucepan and heat it gently until they’re just simmering. Take it off the heat, add the chocolate, and mix them together until smooth. Do not put the pan back on the heat! The chocolate will melt even if the mix is only warm, but re-heating it will make it separate and spoil.

Mix in the nuts, then add a sprinkling of salt. If the consistency of the spread isn’t quite as smooth as you’d like or it seems to be a little thick, add more cream until you’re happy.

Pour into jars; keep it at room temperature and eat it within two weeks.