Vegan nutella with coconut condensed milk

So it seems that the end of year festive craziness has hit me with a resounding wallop!  Hence my slow posting of late.  Since my last post a few days ago, I have been baking gingerbread houses, had our end of year book club celebrations, made grubs for a cake stall, Sylvia had gymnastics display day, we attended a carol service and the house is desperately in need of a good clean.  So I bring you a simple vegan nutella recipe today that would make a good present or just be on hand for some stress relief!

I made this sauce really because I wanted a recipe to feature some coconut condensed milk that I bought.  I liked the condensed milk.  It was a different sort of creamy to the regular one.  But pleasing all the same!  Despite loving the "nutella" spread, I thought it more like a good ganache rather than nutella.  I think the problem is that regular nutella is made with very little nuts and lots of milkiness.  And who wants that sort of spread. 

I suspect a more milky spread might make my blender happier.  I blended the nuts, condensed milk and chocolate into a thick mixture.  Suddenly my blender stopped.  It wasn't overheated.  I had fixed a keyboard that didn't work a few days before by turning it off and turning it on again but this didn't help the blender.  So I put in a support ticket with Froothie and they told me there was an override switch on the bottom of the blender.  Oh!

However by the time I had fixed the blender the nutella was in a jar and a tub.  It was thick like fudge once it set and needed milk to be spreadable.  Next time I would add the milk after the nuts had become butter or even with the nuts.  If I had a better food processor I might use that instead or I think I could just mix the nut butter with chocolate and condensed milk.  I found that if I heated up the nutella it was easy to add milk and make it a warm sauce for pancakes. 

But before thinning down the nutella I spread some on white chocolate and raspberry biscuits to make great sandwich cookies.  Sadly the biscuits went too quickly to make many sandwiches.  The nutella also went rather quickly.  We loved it on a plain rice cake.  I liked the idea of packaging it as a gift but I can't give any information about how long it lasted as I didn't like to count the days it took us to plough through it.

I am sending this nutella to We Should Cocoa hosted by Munchies and Munchkins this month, to Cindy for Gluten Free Fridays, and to Lucy and Lauren for Fabulous Foodie Fridays.

Recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe to feature this nutella/sauce:
Chocolate pancakes with berries and chocolate sauce
Nutella blondies
Nutella fudge (gf,v)
Nutella rice bubble slice
Strawberry sushi with chocolate sauce (gf, v)
Zucchini brownie with smoked walnuts (v)

Vegan "Nutella" with coconut condensed milk
Adapted from The Eccentric Cook

200g roasted hazelnuts
400ml coconut condensed milk
200g dark chocolate (70%)
1/2 cup milk or more

Blend hazelnuts to make a butter.  It can take some time.  Add in remaining ingredients to make it smooth and spreadable.  Bear in mind that the melted chocolate will thicken as it cools so make it more runny than you want it.  If it is too thick when it cools, warm it up and stir in more milk.

VARIATIONS: 
No milk will make it into a fudge if you keep it in the fridge.  More milk will make it into a luscious sauce.  It can also be used to frost cakes. 

NOTES:
If you don't have a powerful blender, you could do it in a good food processor (mine is pretty hopeless at such things) or you could buy hazelnut butter and mix the rest of the ingredients by hand.  To make this vegan you should check the chocolate, condensed milk and milk is vegan.  I used soy milk.  If you cannot find coconut condensed milk you could simmer milk and sugar together until you have the right consistency.

On the stereo:
White Christmas: Bing Crosby