NUTELLA DAY!

Happy Nutella Day everyone! The creators of this day have their own blogs: http://bleedingespresso.com/ and http://msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/. The website dedicated to this day where you can find hundreds of Nutella recipes is called: http://www.nutelladay.com/This is one of my favorite days of the year. I love Nutella. I wanted to do something creative and different with Nutella for today. I based my recipe off of one that I found at www.tarteletteblog.com. There isn't really a name for it. The base is made of a Nutella and chocolate sable. The middle is a hazelnut tartlette (recipe taken directly from her blog). The top I finished off with a Nutella parfait. It was quite delicious and definitely unique.

Personally I enjoyed eating the sable dough rather than the actual cookies; however, the cookies work well with the entire dessert. The hazelnut part itself wasn't my favorite, but again it worked well with the rest of the components. I loved the ricotta parfait, it was light and delicious. I will make it in the summer with different flavorings because it is very similar to an ice cream. Enjoy!

Sable Ingredients:

• 5 grated hazelnuts
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/6 cup cocoa powder
• 1/8 t baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 2.5 oz softened butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1-2 T Nutella

Sable Directions

• Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in small bowl
• Beat butter and sugar in medium bowl until combined
• Mix in the egg yolk along with the Nutella
• Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat together (not too much though)
• Fold in the hazelnuts careful to not over mix
• Bring the dough together with your hands without kneading
• Lay the dough on a long sheet of parchment paper
• By using the paper, roll the dough into a long log about 2 inches in diameter
• Put in the fridge (or freezer) for about an hour
• Bring oven to 190 Celsius and line a baking sheet with parchment paper
• After and hour take out the logs and slice them about 1/2 inch thick and place on a cookie sheet (they won't spread too much). Put the baking sheet in the fridge for another 15 minutes
• Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes. After done, let cool 5 minutes before transferring cookies to cooling rack

Hazelnut tartelettes ingredients (from www.tarteletteblog.com)

• 1 egg
• 110 grams brown sugar
• 85 grams honey
• pinch of salt
• 1 T melted butter
• 86 grams chopped hazelnuts

Hazelnut tartelettes Directions:

• Preheat oven to 135 celsius
• In large bowl mix egg, brown sugar and honey until combined. Add the salt and butter and mix
• Then add hazelnuts
• Grease foil and fit into 2.5 inch ramekins. Pour/spoon the batter into these (I only had three ramekins of this size so I had to do this in multiple batches)
• Bake for 30 minutes until set and firm
• After completely cooled, take the foil out of the ramekins. Slid a butter knife between the foil and the hazelnuts
• Slide the hazelnut tartelette out of the foil

Ricotta and Nutella Parfait Ingredients:

• 5 grated hazelnuts
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 egg whites
• 5 T sugar, divided
• 100 grams ricotta
• 4 T Nutella separated
• 60 grams heavy cream

Ricotta and Nutella Parfait Directions:

• Mix egg yolk and 2 T sugar until pale and thick. Then mix in 2 T Nutella
• In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites to firm peaks and add the other 3 T sugar, one at a time until the eggs are glossy
• Gently fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture
• In another bowl, whip the ricotta quickly and add the rest of the Nutella and mix
• After that's mixed add the cream and mix for about 2 minutes until thick
• Fold this into the egg mixture
• Line a 8x11 inch baking pan with plastic wrap and pour in the parfait batter
• Freeze for about an hour

Final Assembly:

• Place one sable onto a plate
• Then place the hazelnut tartelette onto the sable
• Next cut a circle out of the parfait and place onto the hazelnut tartelette
• Lastly garnish with grated hazelnuts and a bit of Nutella
• Guten Appetit!