Hazelnut-Chocolate Spread

Spreads are one of those small pleasures we never tire of. They are perfect with crêpes, waffles and toast, but they are also valuable in baking, for filling, layering or adding an extra note of indulgence to a dessert.

The trouble is that when you look at what goes into some commercial spreads, you often find a great deal of white sugar, glucose syrup and plenty of ingredients we could happily do without.

That is another reason I love making things at home. You choose the ingredients, you control the quantities and, above all, you know exactly what you are eating.

For this recipe I took my inspiration from the celebrated pastry chef Christophe Michalak, whose world and creativity I particularly admire. His recipe made me want to have a go and rework it my own way, fully plant-based and gluten-free.

But I also wanted to add my own touch.

What makes this spread particular is that it is made with my own plant-based milk chocolate, a recipe I created myself and which you will also find on my blog.

And that, for me, is a real satisfaction.

Because when you no longer eat dairy, recovering the pleasure of a true milk chocolate — its sweetness, its roundness, its characteristic taste — is not always easy.

Dark chocolate preparations are fairly easy to find, sometimes plant-based white chocolate ones, but homemade spreads made with plant-based milk chocolate are far less common.

So I wanted to offer an alternative to everyone who, like me, enjoys that particular sweetness of milk chocolate and does not necessarily want the intensity of dark.

We are not talking about dairy milk here, of course, but about a chocolate made with plant-based milk, which recovers the markers of traditional milk chocolate.

Paired with hazelnut, the result is genuinely delicious: a generous, sweet, chocolatey spread with that good hazelnut flavor that makes it what it is.

I am particularly happy to be able to offer you this recipe, because it brings together two preparations I love: my homemade plant-based milk chocolate and this spread inspired by Christophe Michalak.

One tip: this spread is best kept at room temperature, somewhere cool and dry, if the ingredients you use allow it. In the refrigerator it goes quite hard and loses that texture that makes it so pleasant to spread.

You can enjoy it on good homemade crêpes, on crisp waffles, on a slice of bread, on toast, or use it in your own creations.

And what a pleasure to eat a spread you made yourself, with ingredients you chose and a homemade plant-based chocolate.

That is exactly what I love sharing through Les Secrets d’une Cheffe: showing that you can recover the flavors and pleasures of traditional pastry while using other ingredients, without animal products and without gluten.