Photo: AOL City Guide

Reminder!  Nic and I are having lunch this Friday at Newsroom Cafe and are extending an invite to the rest of the food blogging world.  We will also be having sweets: I’m bringing my macaroons, and we will take a stroll to Al Gelato.  If you’d like to join, please e-mail us so we know how many people to expect.  More info here.

If someone offered you portable chocolate that could instantly be spread on bread, fruit, crackers and pastries, how could you refuse? Thus began my love affair with Nutella, a European spread made of hazelnut butter and cocoa.

During my days at NYU, I was at a make-your-own sandwich bar when I first tried Nutella with French bread. What a revelation! The chocolate oozed out of the nooks and crannies of the insides, while the spread’s smoothness contrasted the bread’s crunchy crust. I then saw that bagels were an excellent vehicle for Nutella. So were pretzels. And bananas. And gummy bears.

Fascinated by this new condiment, I bought myself a jar and finished it in one week. I’ve never met any food that does not taste better with a little dollop of Nutella. Sometimes the best way to enjoy Nutella is to take a spoonful and just plop it in your mouth.

According to Ferrero’s website, Nutella was created in the 1940s in the midst of a chocolate shortage. Pietro Ferrero, a pastry-maker, stretched chocolate by thinning it out with ground hazelnuts. It became so popular that it’s as ubiquitous in Europe as peanut butter is in the U.S. If you ignore the high sugar content, Nutella actually has a nutritional profile similar to peanut butter. Its fat comes from the nuts, not the chocolate (Nutella gets its flavor from cocoa solids rather than cocoa butter). True, nuts are high in fat. But if you’re going to be eating fat, it might as well come from nuts rather than steaks.

According to Mort Rosenblum’s Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light, a 13-ounce jar of Nutella contains 50 (2/3 cup) hazelnuts, 1 1/2 cups skim milk, “enough cocoa to make it brown, and a lot of sugar.” As much as I love Nutella, today’s commercial version is actually sugar that’s been flavored with hazelnuts and cocoa. You can tell because sugar is first in the ingredient list. And oh, there’s lots of added oil to make it spreadable.

The version that I make at home is truly chocolate-flavored hazelnut butter: I use 2 cups of hazelnuts rather than Ferrero’s puny 2/3 cup. This recipe is the same that I’ve sent out in Blogging by Mail and that Nic (of The Baking Sheet) used for her Nutella biscotti.

If you love this original recipe and repost it, please give credit where it’s due. Thank you.

Update: For an even richer version, try the second formula, which has caramel powder and no added oil. Unless you have a professional nut grinder, it won’t be as smooth as commercial Nutella, but the flavor more than makes up for it.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread (easy version)

Yield: about 12 ounces (1 1/2 cups)

2 cups whole raw hazelnuts
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
up to 1/4 cup vegetable or nut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place hazelnuts in a single layer on a shallow baking pan. Toast until the skins are almost black and the meat is dark brown, about 15 minutes. Stir the nuts halfway through baking to ensure an even color.
2. Since the skin is bitter, you’ll want to discard them. Wrap the cooled hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel, and rub until most of the skins have come off. Don’t fret if you can’t get off all the skins.
3. Process nuts in a food processor, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, until they have liquefied, about 5 minutes. First, you will get coarsely chopped nuts, then a fine meal. After a little while, the nuts will form a ball around the blade, and it will seem like you only have a solid mass. Keep processing. The heat and friction will extract the natural oils, and you will get hazelnut butter!
4. When the nuts are liquified, add in the sugar, cocoa and vanilla. Slowly drizzle in enough oil to make a spreadable consistency. Since the mixture is warm, it will be more fluid now than at room temperature.
5. Transfer the spread to an airtight container, and store in the refrigerator for1-2 months. For best results, stir the chocolate-hazelnut spread before using.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread (caramel base)

Caramel instructions from Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts by Alice Medrich

Yield: about 12 ounces (1 1/2 cups)

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 cups whole raw hazelnuts
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

1. Preparation: Line a baking sheet with foil. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Make the caramel: Combine the sugar and water in a 3- to 4-cup saucepan. Do not stir again during the cooking. Cover and bring sugar and water to a simmer over medium heat. Uncover and wipe down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush or a wad of paper towel dipped in water. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, or until the sugar is completely dissolved. Uncover and cook until the syrup turns a pale amber. Test by spooning a drop or two of the syrup onto a white saucer. Swirl the pan gently, continuing to cook and test the color until the syrup darkens to a medium amber color.
3. Pour the caramel immediately onto the lined baking sheet. Tilt sheet to spread caramel as thinly as possible. Let harden completely, about 15 minutes.
4. Toast the nuts: Meanwhile, place hazelnuts in a single layer on a shallow baking pan. Toast in the oven until the skins are almost black and the meat is dark brown, about 15 minutes. Stir the nuts halfway through baking to ensure an even color.
5. To get rid of the bitter skins, wrap the cooled hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel. Rub until most of the skins have come off, but don’t worry if some remain.
6. Make the nut butter: When the caramel is completely cool, break it into pieces and pulverize in a food processor. Try to get the caramel as fine as possible at this stage (it won’t get finer once you add the nuts).
7. Add the nuts and process until they have liquefied, about 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Be patient; the nuts will go from a fine meal, to forming a ball around the blade, to nut butter. Add the cocoa, vanilla and salt and process until smooth.
8. Transfer the spread to an airtight container, and store in the refrigerator for1-2 months. For best results, stir the chocolate-hazelnut spread before using.

Notes:

• Please use whole raw nuts, and toast them yourself to intensify the flavor. Pre-toasted or pre-chopped nuts are often spoiled.
• To further intensify the nut flavor, use unrefined nut oil (for version 1), which is tan in color. Refined nut oils have the color and flavor removed. Peanut oil is especially cheap in Chinese supermarkets. I bought 20 ounces for $2.38! There’s a lesson: if you’re looking for a “gourmet” ingredient, try an ethnic market.
• To make any standard nut butter, use this procedure but omit the powdered sugar, cocoa, vanilla and extra oil. Add 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tbsp granulated sugar. Try making your own cashew butter: you may never go back to peanut butter again!

Resources:
Official Nutella site
Nutella recipes

If America could be symbolized as one object, it would be an apple pie, a classmate once said. Round, wholesome and homey, an apple pie evokes images colonial cooking. Just imagine crisp apples freshly picked off of trees and combined with a buttery, hand-formed crust.

Never mind that apple pies actually came from Europe and the phrase “As American as apple pie” was a marketing campaign created by New York apple growers.

Besides, if I were to describe America as a food, I’d say we’re hot dogs. We’re a nice big mixture of everything encased into a harmonious package. And oh yeah, hot dogs are eaten at our national past time, baseball games.

What about the phrase “easy as pie,” then? Pie crust is prone to innumerous problems: the dough often tears, the butter melts to create a sticky mess, and then the dough gets tough after too much flour is added to compensate. When you’re all done shaping the blob, the bottom gets soggy in the oven, while the edges burn. There’s also the age-old question: do you pre-bake the crust or not? There goes food myth #2.

The easiest yet most impressive looking “pie” to make is actually the French tarte tatin. Legend has it that in 1989, the Tatin sisters accidentally left apples stewing on the stove and rescued the dish by putting pastry on top and flipping it over.

I love tarte tatin because it doesn’t matter if you have a misshapen crust. It will all be covered by a concentric circle of caramelized apples. Don’t be fooled by the short ingredient list; neither spices, thickeners nor lemon juice are needed. Fresh out of the oven, the caramel is gooey, the apples chewy and the crust crispy. The recipe below makes one of the best apple pies I’ve ever had in my life.

It’s important to choose apples that keep their shape after cooking. Generally, sweeter apples like Galas don’t hold up, while tart apples like Granny Smiths have great texture. The best compromise is a Golden Delicious or Jonagold (a cross between the tart Jonathan and sweet Golden Delicious). I’m the type of person who buys whatever apples are on sale, but the apple type really matters here. Do not use Macintoshes or Jonamacs (a cross between Jonathans and Macouns): you’ll get apple sauce before you get caramel. More info about apple varieties is at the New York Apple Association’s site.

The crust that I use has two unusual ingredients: egg and vinegar. Egg makes it rich, while vinegar makes it flake on contact. The vinegar also makes the crust shrink after baking, but it’s only a slight shortcoming. After trying this all-butter recipe, you may never go back to a vegetable shortening crust again. Cooks often use shortening because it’s less likely to melt under the heat of your hands, but I think it brings nothing to the flavor or texture. Shortening crusts are artificially puffy and remind me of stale cookies. True, shortening also makes the dough smooth, but who cares what the crust looks like when you’re making tarte tatin? If you didn’t know already, shortening is chemically altered vegetable oil that’s solid at room temperature. It’s also high in bad cholesterol-raising trans fats. Another reason to stay away.

Pie Crust

Adapted from a Sunset magazine cookbook

Makes barely enough for three single-crust 9-inch pies or too much for two.

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup (2 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 egg, well beaten
1 Tbsp vinegar
4 Tbsp ice cold water

Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Add butter and cut into flour. You may use a pastry blender, two knives or your hands. Smoosh the butter with the flour and continue till the biggest pieces are pea-sized and the smallest pieces resemble bread crumbs.

Combine egg and vinegar in a small bowl and add it to the flour mixture. Add water 1 Tbsp at a time, just until the crust just begins to come together. Smoosh the dough together so it forms a solid mass. You should still see large striations of butter.

Divide dough in half and press each half into a round flat disk, and wrap tightly in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, preferably for several hours and for up to two days before rolling. This step lets the dough relax so it doesn’t get tough. The dough can also be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 6 months; thaw completely before rolling.

If you refrigerated the dough for more than a couple hours, let it warm up on the counter for about 15 minutes so it’s pliable. You want the dough to be cold, so the butter doesn’t melt. But if it’s too cold, it will be stiff and crack when you roll it.

Roll the dough on a flat floured surface (a wax-paper lined counter works well). Lean into a floured rolling pin and roll from the center out, stopping just short of the edge. Keep rotating the dough 90 degrees to ensure that it’s not sticking and to shape it into an even circle. If the dough cracks or tears, push it back together. If the shape is uneven, cut off the portruding piece and patch it on the short side with cold water. If the dough becomes too soft and starts sticking, slide it on top of a rimless cookie sheet and refrigerate it until it firms up. It is not unusual for all these things to happen. The crust should be about 1/8-inch thick.

If you plan on making a custard pie (ie pumpkin, lemon meringue or pecan), prick the crust with a fork and blind bake (cover the shaped crust with foil and weigh it down with dried beans, rice or metal pie weights) at 425F for 12 minutes. Then remove the foil, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for a few minutes more, until the crust is golden brown. I have never had a soggy pie crust with these directions. When you bake the filling, cover the edges of crust with foil (you’ll need several pieces plus tape). If making a double-crusted pie or tarte tatin, there’s no need to blind bake. But do brush with egg wash and sprinkle the crust with sugar to keep it crispy.

If you have extra pie dough, make empanadas by filling small disks with chocolate chips, mashed bananas, Nutella or nuts. Fold each disk over and seal. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 425F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Tarte Tatin

adapted from The Joy of Cooking

You will need any ovenproof, deep, heavy skillet measuring 7-8 inches across the bottom and 10-11 inches across the top. Cast iron works well because of its heat retaining properties, but you made find it too heavy when unmolding the tart. I’ve heard you can use a pan with a plastic handle if you cover the handle with several layers of aluminum foil. I’m not sure if a Teflon-coated pan can withstand the heat though, especially in light of recent lawsuits.

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe pie dough, puff pastry or store-bought pie dough (make sure it has real butter!)
6 medium-large Golden Delicious apples (about three pounds)
1 stick butter (can reduce to 1/2 stick)
1 cup sugar

Prepare the pie dough. Roll into a 12-inch round, slip a rimless cookie sheet beneath it, and refrigerate. If using puff pastry, dock the dough with a fork so it doesn’t rise to be one-inch thick in the oven.

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375F.

Peel, core, and quarter lengthwise the apples. Melt butter in the skillet chosen for the tarte. Remove from the heat and sprinkle sugar evenly over the bottom.

Arrange a ring of apple quarters against the sides of the pan, standing the apples on the thin edge of their cut side so as to fit as many as possible. Fill in the center of the skillet with the remaining apple quarters. You may have a piece or two of apples leftover.

Place the skillet over the highest possible heat and cook, stirring, until the juices turn from butterscotch to deep amber, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat, spear the apples with a fork or the point of a paring knife, and flip them onto their uncooked sides. Return the skillet from the heat and slide the prepared crust onto the aples. Being careful not to burn your fingers, gently tuck the edges of the dough against the inner sides of the skillet. If the crust tears, patch it up with a paste created with flour and water. Brush the crust with egg wash (a beaten egg and a Tbsp of water) and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake the tart until the crust is richly browned, 25 to 35 minutes. Let cool on a rack for 20 minutes, then loosen the sides with a knife and invert the tart onto a serving plate that can withstand the heat. Return any apples that stick to the skillet to their proper place on top of the tart. If you let the tarte cool too long, the caramel will harden and the apples will not come loose. In that case, just heat the pan on the stove to remelt the caramel.

Serve immediately or let stand at room temperature for up to 8 hours. When ready to serve, warm the tart to tepid in an oven heated at the lowest setting.

Notes:

If you love caramel apples, you will love this dessert. My only gripe is that I like the texture of deep-dish apple pies, but I love the flavor of the buttery apples here. Tarte tatin is dainty; it only stands one inch tall. Anyone have suggestions on how to caramelize apples in a traditional pie without cooking them to death? Tyler Florence’s Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie looks promising.

If the apples don’t come out on the first flip, don’t force them out with a spatula. Otherwise, you’ll end up with broken pieces like this:

Instead, reheat the pan over the stove to soften the caramel.

Photo: AOL City Guide

LOS ANGELES - Nic and Jessica were spotted Friday at the vegetarian-friendly Newsroom Cafe, dining on tofu and sesame flatbread amidst friendly chatter.  The couple then strolled down Robertson Blvd. to Al Gelato and shared a cone of Italian-style ice cream.  It seems the couple has reconciled their differences.

No, not that Nick and Jessica.  This Nic and Jessica.  Nic (of The Baking Sheet) and I previously teamed up to create Blogging by Mail.  I’d say she’s one of my good food blogger friends, although I’ve nver met her in person!  It turns out that we both have SoCal roots, and I’m visiting L.A. around Christmas.  Since Clotilde’s (of Chocolate & Zucchini) NYC bloggers’ meetup worked so well, Nic and I have decided to have lunch together on Friday, Dec. 30 at Newsroom, followed by dessert at Al Gelato.

All are welcome to join, but please RSVP so we know how many to expect and if we should reserve a table.  More details on time will follow.  I will try to bring some of my macaroons!

Newsroom
120 N Robertson Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048-3115
(310) 652-4444

Al Gelato
806 S Robertson Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035-1601
(310) 659-8069