Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Stuffed Strawberries

In honor of Valentine’s Day taking place in a few days, I have a delicious dessert recipe to share with you all today.

It all started when I heard about Davida‘s Valentine’s Day Bake Off. Naturally, I wanted to participate, but there weren’t any baking ideas immediately popping into my head….and then I thought of making a homemade version of Nutella. Since it’s V-Day, the idea of strawberries were also on my brain. Technically there isn’t any baking involved in this recipe, but I figure that there’s no room to be a stickler for rules when chocolate is involved, right? 😉

I think many people would agree with me when I say that Nutella is heavenly tasting. I think it’s slightly ridiculous that people see it as a “nutritious” thing to eat for breakfast, but I do not pass up the opportunity to get a crepe stuffed with fruit and Nutella when given the chance. Random Fact: World Nutella Day just passed on February 5th. I kid you not, this holiday exists!

In recent times, I satisfy my chocolate hazelnut spread urges by buying Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter, which is deeeelish and also addicting, yet is better for you because the first ingredient is actual hazelnuts — unlike Nutella, where the first two ingredients are sugar and palm oil (Hazelnuts as the first ingredient in hazelnut butter?? Brilliant!). When I got the bright idea to try and make chocolate hazelnut butter myself, off to Whole Foods I went for some dry roasted hazelnuts….

You can also buy raw hazelnuts and roast them yourself if you’d like.

Other star ingredients in this butter include maple syrup, almond milk, sea salt and dark chocolate.

To make the butter, first pulse all of the hazelnuts in a food processor. After a minute, they’ll look like this…

…but you’ll want to keep going until the nuts form a hazelnut paste as pictured here:

The next thing to do is melt the chocolate, almond milk, and vanilla extract in a saucepan. I used dark chocolate discs for this recipe. After melted, I combined the chocolate in with the hazelnuts in the food processor, and added sea salt, maple syrup, cocoa powder and vegetable oil. I thoroughly mixed everything until it looked like the deliciousness below.

At first, I attempted to use the hazelnut butter to stuff the strawberries right away, but then quickly realized that right out of the food processor, the spread is a bit too runny. Case in point:

You actually could use the hazelnut butter as is if you’d like to simply dip fruit into it, or whatever else you people do with Nutella…

…but for the purposes of stuffing strawberries, what I did next was place the hazelnut butter in the freezer for about 15 minutes to let it harden up a bit.

While that’s happening, you’ll want to cut the stems of your strawberries off and scoop out some of the flesh in the middle with a butter knife, as your dog longingly looks on in hopes of nabbing one of the berries of course…

After the butter has hardened up a bit, remove it from the freezer and scoop some into each of your strawberries.

The cutest grandma in the world (mine of course!) always sends me little things for Valentine’s Day. Last week she sent me toffee and cupcake decorators for the holiday, so I used some of my decor to spruce up my hazelnut butter stuffed strawberries.

I find this to be a very pretty, Valentine’s Day-ish dessert, don’t you?

Dark Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Stuffed Strawberries

Foodie Loves Fitness

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Prep Time 20 mins

Cook Time 10 mins

Total Time 30 mins

Servings 12

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 12 large strawberries
• 1 cup dry roasted hazelnuts
• 6 oz dark chocolate discs chips, etc. (You'll want to stay away from bitter baking bars though.)
• 1 TBSP cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup plus 3 TBSP maple syrup
• 1/2 cup chocolate almond milk
• 2 TSP vanilla extract
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1/2 TSP sea salt plus more to taste

Instructions

 

• Place hazelnuts in a food processor and pulse for a couple of minutes until it forms a thick paste.
• In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate with the almond milk over low heat, stirring often. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.
• Add the chocolate mixture to the food processor, and mix in the sea salt, cocoa powder, maple syrup and vegetable oil. Pulse again for a few minutes until everything is combined well.
• Place the butter in the freezer for about 15 minutes to allow it to harden a bit. You'll want it to be not runny, yet still very easily spreadable.
• Meanwhile, cut the stems of your strawberries off and scoop out most of the flesh with a butter knife. Once the butter is ready, remove from the freezer and use a butter knife to spread some into each strawberry. Serve immediately.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Question: What’s your favorite dessert?

This is a tough question for me! I love chocolate cake and ice cream/fro yo, but in recent time I’ve been liking fancy cupcakes. I think we can agree that for V-Day, strawberries and chocolate are where it’s at!