Oh Nuts Blog

If you're like most people, you probably started off the year with a whole list of resolutions: more sleep! Less coffee! More exercise! Less television! More vegetables! Less sugar!

That's commendable, truly it is. But one cannot live on celery and carrot sticks and treadmill-pounding alone. Besides, it's been a whole week now! You deserve a reward! Allow me to tempt you with these...

I call them "Resolution Breaker Candy Bars," and if you're absolutely wedded to your healthy eating habits, stop reading now before it's too late...

Still here? Good! These homemade candy bars are so tasty, they're worth the extra time at the gym or handfuls of spinach in the salad. Each chocolate bar is jam-packed with peanut nougat, creamy caramel and salty peanuts, for a taste that's just like your favorite candy bar.

Resolution Breaker Candy Bars
yield: about 20 bars

• 24 ounces chocolate candy coating
• 1/2 stick (2 oz) butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow creme or fluff
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup peanut butter, creamy or chunky
• 14 oz soft caramels, unwrapped
• 1.5 cups roasted, salted peanuts

To make it easier to remove and cut the bars, line a 9x13 pan with aluminum foil.

Melt the candy coating and spread a very thin layer on the foil. Don't use much--maybe1/2 cup total. This is just to keep the nougat from sticking and make the homemade candy bars easier to dip. Refrigerate the pan to set the coating while you prepare the rest of the filling. The bowl of melted coating can stay at room temperature until you're ready to use it again.

Most nougat recipes are pretty complicated and involve whipping egg whites into a meringue and using a candy thermometer to boil a sugar syrup. Not this one! I'll show you a quick and easy way to make a nougat filling for homemade candy bars that tastes just as good as the complicated ones.

In a medium saucepan, combine the butter, granulated sugar, and evaporated milk. Place the pan over medium-high heat and stir frequently until the butter and sugar dissolves. Meanwhile, make sure the peanut butter, marshmallow creme, and vanilla extract are measured out and are nearby, so you can grab them as soon as you need them.

Bring the mixture in the pot to a boil, and boil it for four minutes, stirring constantly to keep it from scorching. During this time it should go from light and liquidy to darker and more syrupy in color and texture.

After four minutes, immediately remove the pan from the heat and stir in the peanut butter, marshmallow creme, and vanilla extract. Stir it in quickly, before the sugar syrup starts to harden and crystallize. Once it's mixed in it should be a light beige color and a fluffy texture.

Scrape the peanut nougat on top of the chocolate layer in the pan, and spread it into a smooth, even layer. Refrigerate the pan to cool the nougat down while you prepare the caramel layer.

And by "prepare," I really mean "microwave," because this recipe is all about shortcuts and efficiency.

Place the unwrapped soft caramels in a microwave-safe bowl and add a spoonful or two of water or cream. The exact amount kind of depends on how soft your caramels are to begin with--if your caramels are difficult to bite through, you'll want to add several spoonfuls to loosen them up and make the caramel in the candy bars soft and silky. However, if they're already quite soft, just a tablespoon of water or cream should do the trick.

Microwave the caramels in 30-second bursts until melted, stirring after every interval. It should take 1-2 minutes to get them liquidy and smooth.

Add the salted peanuts and stir until the peanuts are completely coated with caramel.

Spread the peanutty caramel (or caramelly-peanuts) on top of the peanut nougat. If it's difficult to do with a knife, you can wet your hands and use your hands to press them into an even layer. And remember, sweets are an art, not a science, so it's fine to have some variations and imperfections.

Refrigerate the pan to set the caramel, for about 45 minutes. It doesn't need to be rock-hard (in fact, that makes it more difficult to cut) but it should be set enough to not ooze when you cut into it.

Once set, remove the candy bars from the pan using the foil as handles. Use a large sharp knife sprayed with nonstick spray to cut the tray into small bars. If you want to make them close to average candy bar size, cut the tray in half lengthwise, then cut each half in about ten 1-inch intervals, for a total of 20 homemade candy bars.

And now to finish the masterpieces! Check on your candy coating: if it has started to set, microwave it again until it is smooth and fluid.

Use forks or dipping tools to dip each candy bar in the coating until completely covered, then tap the fork against the lip of the bowl so excess coating drips off. The chocolate layer on the bottom of the bars should make it pretty easy to dip these candy bars.

Set the dipped bars on a sheet of waxed paper to cool and harden completely, or put them in the refrigerator to speed the process along.

Once they're set, your homemade candy bars are ready to eat! Keep them at room temperature so the nougat and caramel stay soft and luscious. If kept in an airtight container, they're good for at least a week, although I can't believe they'd really last that long without being eaten.

My apologies to your New Year's Resolutions, but these homemade candy bars are just too good not to share. Besides, there's always next year!

If you ask me, Nutella should be considered one of the four main food groups. This chocolate-hazelnut spread has it all: healthy fat and protein from nuts, heart-healthy antioxidants from the dark chocolate, a touch of sweetness to fulfill that...um...sugar requirement...okay, so it's not quite ready for a starring role on the food pyramid. Who cares, when it tastes so good?

The problem with traditional Nutella--in addition to its addicting flavor--is that it's loaded with modified palm oil. If you're like me, and you want your guilty pleasures to come with a little less guilt, you'll be thrilled to know that you can make homemade Nutella with just four ingredients and about 15 minutes! Stock up on hazelnuts and be prepared to have Nutella at every meal, because things are about to get intense...

Homemade Nutella Recipe
yield: about 1.5 cups

• 2.5 oz (about 2/3 cups) roasted unsalted hazelnuts


• 3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk


• 3 oz (about 1/2 cup) unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped


• 3 tbsp honey, agave nectar, or other liquid sweetener


• a food processor

The first step is to toast the hazelnuts. If you use the roasted unsalted hazelnuts from Oh Nuts, they technically don't need to be toasted, but I think toasting nuts, even pre-roasted ones, adds a depth of flavor that's important to the finished product.

So place your nuts in a preheated 350 degree oven, and toast them until they're brown and fragrant, about 10-12 minutes. Be sure to stir them every 3-4 minutes to keep them from burning. Once they're toasted, set them aside until they're no longer hot.

The food processor is going to do most of the work in this recipe, so prepare yourself for a lot of food processor pictures. Start by adding the cooled, toasted hazelnuts to the processor bowl.

Turn the food processor on, and after a minute or two you'll be left with very finely ground hazelnuts. Wonderful for sprinkling on pastries, but that's not what we're going for, so keep processing.

After another minute, the nuts will start to clump together around the blade, and you'll find you have a smooth paste like this. Add a touch of salt, and you've create a tasty hazelnut butter! But you didn't come to this tutorial to learn how to make hazelnut butter, you came for Nutella, so turn that processor back on....

Success! After about 5 minutes, your hazelnuts should be processed into a liquid. Scrape down the sides and the blade and process until there are no lumps remaining. Set the hazelnuts aside while you prepare the chocolate portion of the recipe.

The chocolate will need to be melted, so you can either use a microwave-safe bowl, or use the double boiler method on the stovetop. Whichever you choose, combine the chopped chocolate, condensed milk, and honey in a bowl.

If you're using a double boiler, put the bowl on a pan of simmering water on the stovetop, and heat it, stirring frequently, until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. If you're using the microwave, be sure to stir the mix after every 30 seconds to prevent overheating, and stop once everything is melted together.

Now look, you've barely done any work and the Nutella's almost finished. It's magic! The final step is to add the warm chocolate mix to the bowl of the food processor that contains the liquefied hazelnuts.

Process the mix for 1-2 minutes more, until it smooths out, loses a little graininess, and gets shiny and smooth. The more you mix the stiffer the Nutella gets, so be sure to stop while it is still nice and spreadable.

If you'd like, you can taste it and add a pinch of salt or an extra squirt of honey to suit your taste. I'm usually too busy licking it off the spatula to make any final tweaks, though. Store your homemade Nutella in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one month.

I would list all the ways you can eat homemade Nutella, but that list would go on for hours. Here's just a sampling: on apples, bananas, or strawberries, with pretzels, spread on toast, with or without peanut butter, folded into a warm crepe, smeared on a cupcake as a quick frosting, stirred into warm milk to make hot chocolate, spooned over ice cream, swirled into brownie batter, or spread on croissants for the best wake-up you can imagine.

February 14th is right around the corner, and now is the perfect time to make homemade Nutella so you have some on hand for baking with or sharing with your sweet on Valentine's Day.