World Nutella Day is Feb. 5 — spread the love
Feb. 5 is World Nutella Day, and fans have been loving it since it hit American shelves in 1964. Here’s a look at this creamy chocolate hazelnut spread and how it’s become so popular that fans think every day should start or finish with Nutella.
🍫 History of Nutella
Today, you see Nutella and other chocolate hazelnut spread products in many retailers. You’ll often find it on shelves near peanut butter. However, that wasn’t always the case. As with many food inventions in the 20th century, Nutella’s founding occurred because of specific needs.
After World War II, cocoa and many other food products were scarce. However, people still craved chocolate, and an Italian baker had just the idea of how to meet this need.
According to Nutella, the product’s founder Pietro Ferrero decided to create a sweet paste made from hazelnuts, sugar and just a little rare cocoa. This was the first known precursor to what we know today to be called Nutella. It took almost 20 years for the first Nutella jar to hit store shelves, which it did in 1964.
🍫 World Nutella Day
Believe it or not, the product’s parent company did not create World Nutella Day. A food blogger and fan did.
According to the Nutella website, Sara Rosso thought Nutella deserved a worldwide celebration day. She declared Feb. 5, 2007, as the first World Nutella Day and asked other fans to share pictures, ideas, inspiration and recipes on social media. Today, there’s even a hashtag for this food holiday: #worldnutelladay.
🍫 American culture around this hazelnut chocolate spread
This food product has become such a phenomenon that even a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie promoted it. Nutella was a featured player in the movie “Deck the Walls,” when the characters bake a recipe called holiday cutout cookies with Nutella.
Also, Nutella is a trademarked term. Even so, consumers often refer to any hazelnut and chocolate spread as Nutella. It’s a lot like Southerners and their regional sayings whereby they call all fizzy drinks Coke, or someone asks for a tissue and refers to it as a Kleenex.
🍫 How Europeans enjoy Nutella
Michelle Price of Honest and Truly lived in Belgium as a child. “Nutella was a thing there long before it came to the United States,” she recalled. “One of our favorite treats after school was Nutella with sliced apples and bananas on fresh baguettes.”
In addition to a favorite childhood snack, Europeans often incorporate this chocolate hazelnut spread into baked goods. In France, you can order crepes with Nutella, bananas and whipped cream. You’ll find cornetti — Italian croissants — filled with Nutella in Italy.
You might also enjoy it with another kind of bread, which is how Bella Bucchiotti’s grandparents served it. “Some of my best childhood memories are from Nonna and Nonno’s house, where there was always a jar of Nutella on the table,” remembered Bucchiotti of xoxoBella. “The best way to enjoy it? Warm, crispy gnocco fritto — that’s fried dough — straight from the pan, with a generous scoop of Nutella melting into every bite.”
🍫 Specialty chocolate hazelnut spreads
Even though Nutella has become the colloquial word to describe chocolate hazelnut spread, other companies make versions. One such company is Bonne Maman, which you might associate with breakfast jams or their perennially popular holiday advent calendar for adults. They make their own version of hazelnut chocolate spread and recently introduced a peanut chocolate spread.
Even though the word nut is in the name Nutella, other companies make similar products for people with specific allergies or dietary restrictions. For instance, you can find a chocolate hazelnut spread that is kosher for Passover — not all versions are. In addition, companies that make nut-free spreads offer a chocolate version without hazelnuts, such as SunButter Chocolate Sunflower Butter.
🍫 Chocolate hazelnut recipes
You can use the store-bought version in delicious recipes in many ways. If you’d like to try your hand at a breakfast charcuterie board, here is a hazelnut chocolate pancake board recipe courtesy of Bonne Maman.
This board features homemade pancakes. The tools you’ll need to make these special pancakes include a charcuterie board, flat skillet pan or griddle, tongs and heart-shaped pancake rings — they look like cookie cutters.
🍫 Hazelnut chocolate pancake board ingredients
Here are the ingredients you need:
- 8.8-ounce jar of Bonne Maman Hazelnut Chocolate Spread.
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour.
- 1 tablespoon sugar.
- 2 teaspoons baking powder.
- 1 teaspoon baking soda.
- 2 eggs, whisked.
- 2 1/2 cups buttermilk.
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste.
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted.
🍫 Steps to make the pancakes
Grease your pan and heart-shaped pancake rings. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then whisk until combined, ensuring not to overmix.
Heat pan or griddle over medium heat. Use tongs to hold the pancake ring in place, then pour roughly half a cup of pancake mix into the ring with your other hand. Hold the ring in place for about 30 seconds. You want the pancake mix to cook enough so that it sets and the batter won’t run out when you remove the ring.
Let go of the ring and allow the pancake to cook. The pancakes will be ready when their edges start to set. Flip once and cook the other side. Remove when cooked and place on a wire rack. Repeat the process until all of the pancake mix has been used.
🍫 Assemble the breakfast board
Add the heart-shaped pancakes to your wooden serving or charcuterie board. Fill small bowls with chocolate hazelnut spread, fresh fruit, maple syrup or other toppings you would like to eat with your pancakes. Serve and enjoy.
🍫 Sweet endings
Between World Nutella Day and Valentine’s Day — or another love-filled special day — you’ve got all the reasons in the world to enjoy chocolate hazelnut spread. Spread it on your toast for breakfast, on top of pancakes or as a snack any time of the day.
And if you’re a coffee lover, don’t miss this cozy Nutella Coffee recipe that blends your morning brew with chocolatey comfort.
While Leah Ingram has never tried to make Nutella from scratch, she does list homemade recipes for nut butters on her blog My Full Belly.
This article originally appeared on Food Drink Life.
