Ferrero

The Italian town of Alba, where Pietro Ferrero built his pastry shop, was known for high yields of hazelnuts, a crucial ingredient in the creation of the first chocolate-hazelnut spread Pietro sold in 1951 under the name Supercrema. After Pietro passed away, his son Michele took over the company, and in 1963, Michele reformulated the hazelnut spread with more chocolate and changed the name to Nutella. Today, more than 25 percent of the world’s hazelnuts are used to make the famous spread.

A jar of Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread contains only seven ingredients, and every one of them is crucial for either flavor or form. The hazelnuts become hazelnut butter. The cocoa, milk, sugar, vanilla, and oil become milk chocolate syrup. And lecithin, a natural ingredient, is the emulsifier that holds it all together. Our home hack of Nutella looks and tastes like the real one, but thanks to Hershey, we can make our version with just six ingredients. Hershey’s ubiquitous chocolate syrup doesn’t have lecithin in it, but it does contain xanthan gum, an emulsifier made from sugar, that works great for our hack.

The big secret to a good batch of fake Nutella is getting the hazelnuts pureed into a smooth nut butter. Your homemade Nutella hack will only be as smooth as your hazelnuts are, and you’ll need a blender to do that. Once the hazelnuts become nut butter, mix them with the other ingredients in a bowl, and you’ll produce a little more knockoff Nutella than what comes in a 13-ounce jar.