Saturday, March 15, 2008

Nutella bites

I'm sure you've on pins and needles (ahem) since my mystery post. No, I'm not mainlining Nutella. It's a substance best administered orally, and I wanted to see if I could improve my delivery system by creating Nutella bites: little nuggets of dough filled with the stuff and baked like monkey bread.

Here's the result:
Looks pretty good, doesn't it? BUT.
When I cut it open (photo on the left), I found that I really wasn't able to get that much Nutella inside using a poultry injector. (Which I suspected; it was not easy squeezing the plunger!) For comparison, I also filled some dough balls by spreading them out, spooning a big dollop of Nutella on and wrapping the dough around it. (Photo on the right.)

That proved more successful:
Still, the Nutella ends up mostly near the edges rather than the center. I'm not sure how to remedy that. Maybe I can't. Do you have any ideas?

I ate the whole plate yesterday (in the interest of quality testing, of course), then lapsed into a carb- and chocolate-induced coma. Ah, the prices we pay in search of perfection.

8 comments:

  1. It really is a sacrifice, having to test things, isn't it?

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  2. You could just do what I do and skip the bread entirely, and simply eat the Nutella out of the jar. Why fiddle with perfection? Har! Although I do admit I like to use it as a spread in a sandwich cookie, especially a good Linzer cookie recipe. It's still not better than out of the jar, but it's easier to share with others that way.

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  3. Little bread bites stuffed with nutella sounds really good.

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  4. Nutella rolls. That'll get it inside. Flatten dough. Slap on Nutella. Roll. Bake.

    But didn't you already do that?

    I guess the step I'm missing, after "roll" is "slice." Roll. Slice. Bake.

    Yummah!

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  5. I'm wondering what would happen if you chilled little balls of Nutella, wrapped the dough around them, and baked immediately. The bread dough, since it's on the outside and I'm guessing pretty thin, would still bake at pretty much the same rate, but the Nutella would take longer to get up to temperaure.

    Kind of like what happens with deep-fried ice cream.

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  6. Hmm, seems like the nutella would be a bit difficult to form into balls by itself. It's softer than peanut butter. Though if I chilled it ... yes, hmm. I might just try that.

    Groovy, I've done the Nutella loaf, but I was aiming for something akin to monkey bread here, where you can pull off a little self-contained, bite-sized roll that has a whole bunch of Nutella inside.

    Dani, I do occasionally try a spoonful from the jar, but I really like it better baked into warm bread! Like Kevin said, it sounds really good. Now if I can just get it right.

    Amy, I do suffer for my art ...

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  7. Freeze nutella. Scoop balls with a melon baller. Roll out bread dough and cut out circles. Seal each nutella ball between two cirlcle of dough like a ravioli. Bake. ? Could work... : )

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  8. Hi June, that's a great idea! The idea of calling it Nutella ravioli makes me smile. I'm making more dough tonight, so I'll give that a try in a couple of days.

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