Well, since our friend Liselle introduced us to the delights of Pylones in Paris, we use a green silicone Nutella spreader. As the staff at Pylones pointed out, it's great for butter (if it's soft), honey, jam and peanut butter. They didn't suggest Messmör, but that's because, in the nicest possible way, it comes under the heading of 'Weird Swedish Food' (scroll down to August 2007 in the link).
Note that the squirrel on the handle is cleverly designed
to enable you to hang or fix the spreader in a variety of
ways on the edge of your jar or plate.
to enable you to hang or fix the spreader in a variety of
ways on the edge of your jar or plate.
You will notice that I don't pay the extra euro to buy real Nutella. I buy the supermarket own brand chocolate hazelnut spread, which as far as I can work out from the ingredients label, is exactly the same. Chocolate hazelnut spread is so ubiquitous in France that not-Nutella is just called 'paste to spread' (which is what pâte à tartiner translates as literally).The digestive biscuits are there because that's what I spread the chocolate hazelnut spread and the messmör on. They are also nice spread on crêpes, but I am not very keen on bread or toast spread with either. Butter and honey (miel) is what goes on toast.
Susan
5 comments:
Does the special spreader make a difference? Keeps the digestive biscuits from breaking? My kids have recently discovered Nutella, but we can't find an off-brand here in the U.S. It costs $4.19 for a small jar.
I had a martini recently that was Nutella flavored. It tasted good but gave me a stomachache. I think I'll stick to chocolates with hazelnuts.
Susan, I was thinking, with all those hazelnuts you have, why don't you make your own pâte à tartiner ? There must be recipes.
The Veganomicon has a recipe for Not-tella that calls for hazelnuts, Frangelico, vanilla, confectioners sugar, cocoa, soy milk powder, and hazelnut or peanut oil. I haven't tried this, but I stopped buying the brand name stuff because of hydrogenated oils and I forget what all.
Susan, I found in the LeClerc at Amboise a most deadly "pâte à tartiner".... Original Specloos! Add to that they were doing a 2 pack special on the matching Specloos biscuits further into the shelving.... needless to say they fell into my basket!! I've been very good really... there is half a jar and a packet of bscuits left. I just daren't open the other packet.
As for Ken's comment... the honey man from Grand Pressigny gives away a recipe for his honey and dark chocolate to make a spread.... grind your hazelnuts to a very fine paste [might need some noisette oil to assist the pasting process] and melanger the two. [look on one of the jars for proportions... I bought a packet of fruit leather from one of the supermarchés to get their proportions for our own leathers!]
I'll bring some of the yogourt leather over next week.
Paulita: The spreader is like those old fashioned very broad knives, so you can get lots more spread on it :-)
Ken: I'd really like to make our own, but we don't have a food processor at the moment (and nowhere very convenient to set it up if we did). I don't think the wizzy wand would cope well enough to make a good paste.
Carolyn: I've seen Nutella recently that had hydrogenated fat listed, and other Nutella that just listed 'vegetable oils (sunflower, palm). That's the payoff unfortunately - producers ditch the hydrogenates and move to the equally problematic palm oil. The Notella lists vegetable oils. I don't buy it all the time, but it is so often on special here because almost every French child eats it every day.
Tim: I've read about the specloos paste in my French foody magazine, but never tried it. I imagine it is absolutely delish. I look forward to the yoghurt leather - your fruit leather was excellent.
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