Anyway, my World Nutella Day 2011 contribution is this salted chocolate Nutella fudge. I found the recipe at Petunia Pickle Bottom, but have also seen it on a few other food blogs.  I pretty much had to make it as soon as I read the recipe.

It was very hot when I made these, so I stored them in the refrigerator before I took a photo of them.  Condensation started forming on them, which gives them a grainy look in the photo!  My only change for this recipe, and I’d recommend anyone who makes this do this as well, was to sprinkle the sea salt flakes on just before serving, otherwise the salt will melt (especially if it’s in warm weather!).

Taste-wise, I probably wouldn’t make this again.  It was yummy, but rather sweet.  And as much as I love Nutella, I think I prefer just plain old chocolate fudge.  Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned!  I didn’t even think the salt paired well with the hazelnut taste.

If you’re still craving Nutella, I have heaps of Nutella recipes here at The Sweetest Kitchen.  My most popular one is Nutella-coffee frosting, and the Nutella cupcakes in this post; I used Nutella to make these no-bake chocolate peanut butter bars – they were so delicious!; you can make a wonderful, creamy Nutella dip for fruit using this recipe; if you like Nutella and peanut butter together, then these cookies are perfect for you.

World Nutella Day is hosted by Ms. Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso.

Salted Chocolate Nutella Fudge recipe source: Petunia Pickle Bottom

Making my own macarons have always been on my to-do list anyhow, because I had never even eaten a macaron.  I guess that’s what I get for living in Indiana.  Soon after I moved back to Sydney with my family I visited a cupcake shop in Chatswood, Cupcakes On Pitt, and tried two of their macarons, a blueberry one and a chocolate one (my pictures here and here).  They were chewier than I had imagined they would be, but they didn’t taste like anything special.  I was quite disappointed.  Later, however, a friend told me that Cupcakes On Pitt’s macarons were a very poor example as to how macarons should taste.

And still I hadn’t made my own macarons.  I was just dying to, but was still too frightened.  A couple of weeks ago, Samantha of Sweet Remedy mentioned on Twitter that she was scared of making macarons as well.  I had earlier befriended Samantha when we were in a throwdown for October 2009′s Cupcake Hero competition.  So I casually mentioned to her that I was scared as well, and from this we decided to have our own macaron challenge; we would make them “together”.  Well, as “together” as we could anyway, with Samantha being on the other side of the world from me!

We decided on making coffee macarons with a Nutella ganache filling.  I used the coffee macaron recipe from My Tartelette, and the Nutella ganache filling from Italian Food Forever.  Samantha appears to have used both the coffee macaron recipe and Nutella ganache filling recipe from Italian Food Forever, but both coffee macaron recipes are basically the same, except one has more coffee powder than the other.

I didn’t do step-by-step photos, I’m not that kind of person and I’ve never done step-by-photos, but Samantha did and you can find that on her post about her macarons.  She did a wonderful job; although not all of hers turned out perfectly, she got a few very beautiful-looking macarons!

I didn’t think that making the batter was as hard as I had thought it would be.  I should note that my only substitution was that I couldn’t find espresso powder, so I finely ground some instant coffee granules into a powder instead.  I aged my egg whites in the refrigerator for 3 days and let them warm up to room temperature before whipping them.  I then followed My Tartelette’s directions on mixing the almond mixture into the egg whites, and was super careful not to overmix it.  I drew circles on the bottom of my parchment paper that were 1.5 inches in diameter and piped the batter into the shape of the circle.  I let them sit out for 60 minutes before placing them in the oven.

Samantha had told me that when I felt the macarons with my finger, none of the batter should stick to my finger, so I waited for that happen, which was 60 minutes.  I set the oven for 300F for 12 minutes.  After 4 minutes, feet started appearing!  I was so happy that I gave my two young children a multitude of hi-5s!  However, a few minutes later the tops of the shells started cracking.  I wonder if either I left the macarons sit too long, or if the oven was too hot.

The other thing I noticed was that at first the feet rose quite high, but by the end of their time in the oven, they seemed to sort of collapse.  I don’t know what was going on there.

I ended up leaving them in for 15 minutes.  When I took them out they were light in color, but after cooling, they seemed to get a little darker.  My macarons came off the parchment paper quite easily, but Samantha’s didn’t.  I noticed that some of my shells had an air pocket inside, as did Samantha’s and we’re not sure why this happened.

Taking a tip from Samantha, I refrigerated the shells for a while before filling them so that they would firm up a bit and not be quite so fragile to crack.  I piped on my filling to make sure the edges of the filling would look nice.  In the end, this is how they looked.

Although not anywhere near as perfect as you could find at My Tartelette, I think I did pretty well for my first go and am not disappointed.  They taste amazingly great too!

They were still surprisingly chewy, but I was very happy to find that they tasted much better than the macarons I had first had at Cupcakes On Pitt.

Now that I have finally tried making these, I have been encouraged to try again and again, and with different flavors.  I love matcha, so you can bet that you’ll eventually see a matcha-themed macaron appearing here soon.

Thanks for doing this with me, Samantha!

It tastes amazing!  We used apples to dip into it, but it would taste great with bananas and strawberries as well.

This is my bonus World Nutella Day recipe for all you Nutella-lovers!

Nutella Cream Cheese Fruit Dip
Adapted from In Mama’s Kitchen
Print this recipe via Tasty Kitchen
Makes approx. 1/2 cup

Ingredients
3 tablespoons Nutella
3 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
pinch of salt
1/4 cup milk

Method
Thoroughly mix Nutella, cream cheese and salt until no streaks of cream cheese remain.  Mixture may be a little grainy-looking.  Slowly add milk a bit at a time and stir until milk is thoroughly mixed in.  You should end up with a nice smooth, creamy dip for your fruit.  Store in refrigerator.  To soften up the dip after removing from the refrigerator, just stick it in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds.

While in France I did find some, and purchased it to bring home.  The funny thing is, after I tasted it, I didn’t like it!  I also thought it was strange to put chocolate on bread.  So I don’t think I even finished the small jar of it that I had brought home.

Years later, and I do mean years later, after I moved to Australia, I noticed that Nutella was plentiful in all the grocery stores.  I decided to try it again, because it sure did look nice, so maybe my tastes had changed over the years.  Luckily for my tastebuds, I loved it!  Unlucky for my waistline, however!  Nutella has nearly been a staple in our household since then.

I’ve tried plenty of my own Nutella creations in the past, including my popular peanut butter and Nutella swirl cookies, and Nutella-coffee frosting.

This is my second year submitting to World Nutella Day; this year I made a variation of the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.

It’s a fried Nutella and banana sandwich with a cinnamon-sugar crust.  This has already had mixed reactions.  Some love the idea, some hate the idea and think it’s disgusting.  Someone even suggested that instead of frying the bread, to toast it in the toaster.

If I’m going to eat a banana with Nutella, I usually just spread a layer of Nutella on a naked banana, slice it into rounds, then eat it.  I’ve even eaten a plain un-fried Nutella and banana sandwich.  But, as I thought with the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, the extra step of frying it brings a new depth to the taste.

Now, I wouldn’t go and make one of these sandwiches every day, but it does make a nice treat once in a while!

The recipe is below, but please note that I just estimated the amounts of what I used.  This is a recipe where you can use however much (or less) of anything that you like!

Nutella & Banana Sandwich With Cinnamon-Sugar Crust
serves 1

Ingredients
2 slices wholemeal bread, or bread of your choice
Approximately 1/2 teaspoon butter
Cinnamon-sugar, you can buy this at the store or make it yourself
1 ripe banana
Approximately 1 tablespoon Nutella, or similar

Directions
Heat a skillet over low-medium heat.  Meanwhile,  spread a thin layer of butter on one side of each slice of bread.  Sprinkle a good amount of cinnamon-sugar on the buttered side of each slice.

Slice the banana into enough rounds so that you can layer the unbuttered side of one slice of bread with the rounds.  Spread Nutella on the unbuttered side of the other slice of bread.

Carefully place the bread with the bananas, buttered side down, into the skillet.  Immediately place the other slice of bread, Nutella side down, right on top of the bananas.

Fry until golden brown, then flip the sandwich over and fry until golden brown.  Keep your eye on it, it can burn easily!

Let cool, slice diagonally if you like, and enjoy!

So what are you waiting for? Go celebrate World Nutella Day!

See Ms Adventures In Italy, Bleeding Espresso and World Nutella Day for more information.

I have a new favorite now, though.  It’s the peanut butter sandwich cookie filled with plain Nutella.

The directions are simple.  Bake your favorite peanut butter cookies (in my case I used this flourless peanut butter cookie recipe), take two of the cookies, spread plain Nutella on one cookie and top it with the other cookie.  Then eat!

These flourless peanut butter cookies are actually quite delicate, so it took some gentle spreading maneuvers with the Nutella to not break the cookie.  But these are, by far, my favorite peanut butter cookies so I had to use them!

The first cupcakes I’d like to absolutely rave about are these peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate glaze from I Heart Cuppycakes.

These are amazing!  I’ve been reluctant to make peanut butter cupcakes because I thought that the peanut butter might make the cake heavy or dense.  But these cupcakes are so incredibly moist and soft and so full of rich peanut butter flavor!  I was blown away, this is one awesome cupcake!

This will definitely not be the last time I make these.  If you love peanut butter and chocolate, I highly recommend you bake a batch of these right now!  And make sure you have a tall glass of milk to go with them!

Now for the second cupcake.  The peanut butter cupcakes got me thinking about Nutella cupcakes.  Nutella can often be substituted for peanut butter in recipes, so I decided to give it a go with these cupcakes.  I used the same amount of Nutella, but I did decrease the sugar by about 1/4 cup because Nutella is much sweeter than peanut butter.  I did everything else the same as for the peanut butter cupcakes.

What I found was that the Nutella cupcakes sank slightly in the middle when they were done baking.  They seemed to rise higher as well, so next time I wouldn’t use a full 1/4 cup of batter in each liner; my Nutella cupcakes overflowed a little bit!

But, the cake did taste of Nutella and still came out very moist and soft.

I wasn’t sure of the type of frosting to use on Nutella cupcakes.  I didn’t really want to use more Nutella in case it ended up being a bit too much.  A friend suggested marshmallow frosting, which sounded like a winning combination!  I guess sort of like a fluffernutter cupcake, only with Nutella instead of peanut butter!

To finish off the Nutella cupcake, I spooned a dollop (or about a teaspoon) of fresh Nutella into the middle of the top of the cupcake and frosted them with marshmallowy Swiss meringue from the queen of Swiss meringues at How To Eat A Cupcake.  This frosting is definitely a keeper, it was fantastic!

The Nutella cupcake is quite sweet, but a flavor combination I haven’t yet experienced.  Next time I probably wouldn’t use so much frosting on each cupcake, but instead just spread a light layer on top.

What kind of frosting would you like on a Nutella cupcake, just out of curiosity?

The cupcake is a mocha cupcake, made with strong coffee and a scattering of ground coffee.  It is filled with straight Nutella.  The frosting is my Nutella coffee frosting that has been featured at Cupcakes Take The Cake.  The cupcake is finished off with a hazelnut, dipped in chocolate by my own self.

Do these taste like a hazelnut mocha?  They do.  A very rich hazelnut mocha!  The Nutella filling may have been a bit much.  The coffee taste isn’t very strong in the cupcake, and you cannot feel the crunchiness of the ground coffee.  The strongest coffee taste comes from the frosting, which smells absolutely gorgeous.  The cupcake itself is just a teensy bit dry, but very chocolatey.

Our February ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:

And was it easy? YES! It was the quite possibly the easiest thing I’ve ever cooked! The only hard part was spreading the Nutella on the crepes, but once the Nutella melted a bit it became easier.

You can find the entire article from the magazine online at the Martha Stewart website, along with the exact recipe that I used here (I divided the recipe into thirds, and made the smaller crepes).

I’m really impressed with these and would like to try a savory crepe in the coming days; I’m thinking ham and cheese.

Side note – Yes, I realize I haven’t made cupcakes in a while. That is soon to be remedied; I will be making Valentine’s Day cupcakes, and I will be entering this month’s Iron Cupcake: Earth challenge.

As if you didn’t already know, today is World Nutella Day. I suggest you start celebrating and eat some Nutella! We have!

That is my 3 1/2-year-old daughter enjoying this once-in-a-blue-moon treat straight from the jar.

I also want to point everyone in the direction of my Nutella recipes here at The Sweetest Kitchen; namely my peanut butter & Nutella swirl cookies:

my Nutella coffee frosting:

and my Nutella cupcake that was worthy enough to be posted on Cupcakes Take The Cake:

So what are you waiting for? Go celebrate World Nutella Day!

See Ms Adventures In Italy, Bleeding Espresso and World Nutella Day for more information.

I’m only posting a cross section of this cupcake because I was most interested in its texture, which was slightly dense, but very moist. The cupcake held its shape really well and was not crumbly.

It had okay chocolate taste, but in my opinion the taste was similar to a box mix.

The frosting is a Nutella and peanut butter buttercream swirl, which is basically this recipe (you’ll have to scroll down to find the pb frosting recipe), but the recipe was cut in half and Nutella was substituted for the peanut butter in one half.

While this won’t become my standard chocolate cupcake recipe, I can say that I may decide to make these again, especially if I have ran out of butter!