Chocolate Nutella Fudge & Truffles

I love chocolate.  And what is Valentine’s Day if not a reason for sharing and eating chocolate?  I also love all my reader’s, so I’m sharing this delicious recipe with you so you can make it and share it with your loved ones for Valentine’s Day.  Yes, yourself, friends, co-workers, and neighbors all qualify when it comes to sharing chocolate.

I saw the recipe here on Rachael Phillips self-named blog.  I made a batch at Christmas time but didn’t take any pictures.  I also had the idea of making it into little hearts or rolling it into balls for truffles and decided I would have to try them both to show you.  Both worked out, to a degree.

Although I titled this post “Chocolate Nutella Fudge”, I’ve also made it with Cocoa Almond Spread from Trader Joe’s.  Both are very good but I think I prefer the Nutella version.  This is really creamy, delicious fudge.  It is on the soft side so needs some time in the fridge to set up.

Chocolate Nutella Fudge

Adapted from Rachael Phillips

Note: The recipe for the truffles is the same as for the fudge – it just depends how you mold, cut, or scoop and roll the finished product. Truffle details follow.

Ingredients:

14 oz. container sweetened condensed milk

1 cup Nutella or Cocoa Almond Spread

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

5 Tbsp. butter

1 tsp. vanilla (not pictured above because I forgot to get it out)

Optional for decorating fudge hearts:

Colored Sanding Sugar

Cocoa Powder

For Truffles:

grated zest of 1 orange (optional)

Cocoa Powder for coating

Directions:

I read several recipes, including the one on Rachael Phillips, that suggest using a double-boiler (or creating with a bowl over simmering water in a saucepan) for this recipe.  You can do that.   I’ve had good luck using my microwave when melting chocolate.  If you use the microwave, use in short bursts of time and check it frequently.

Either way, you need to combine the ingredients and heat them gently until the chocolate chips are melted and the whole mixture is combined into a smooth, velvety bowl of chocolatey wonderfulness.

For the microwave version, I use a large microwave-safe bowl and dump in all the ingredients.  I meant to add the vanilla at the end but forgot and put it in with everything else. I cut the butter into chunks.

Heat on 50% power for 1 minute than stir.  At first it’s kind of a mess:

The butter is partially melted, the chocolate is getting soft but isn’t really ready.  Give it a stir and then back into the microwave for another minute on 50% power.  Your microwave is very likely different than mine.  After 2 minutes at 50% power, reduce your cooking times to no more than 30 seconds at 5o% power before checking it and stirring it.

This is starting to look better:

But when you lift the spoon, you can see it’s still got un-melted bits of chocolate and it looks kind of gritty.

But a little more time and a few good stirs and it comes together into this smooth mixture.

If you want to make a traditional pan of fudge, butter an 8×8 inch dish and line it with parchment paper with enough extra paper to come over the sides.  This will help you remove the fudge from the pan once it has set.

However, you can really step it up and mold the fudge.  You may recall last year when I made crayon hearts in silicone ice cubed trays from IKEA.  I pictured creating creamy chocolate fudge hearts but I could NOT find the molds.  I cleaned up my craft supplies last spring but didn’t recall surplussing the molds.  Rem and I went to IKEA but sadly, they didn’t have any of the heart shaped ice cube trays in stock.

But then good news/bad news!  Good news: Rem found the molds in a cupboard!  They still had melted crayon in them and I wasn’t sure about using them for food.  I figured kids eat crayons so if I cleaned them really well it would probably be ok.  I thought a few seconds in the warm oven would soften the crayon and then I could wipe off most of the melted crayon before giving them a good scrub.  I put them in the oven for just a few moments…and promptly forgot about them.  Bad news: Dianne melted the molds.  Please don’t do this at home!

But I was able to find NEW heart-shaped silicone molds online on eBay from eHappyHome, and I also had a food-grade mold from Chase Creative Molds (designed for soap) so I was ready for making some fancy fudge.

The bird mold came out beautifully but the little hearts tended to stick.  Next time I would use nonstick spray before putting the fudge in the molds.

Fill the mold by spooning the fudge into the mold and leveling it off with the flat back edge of a butter knife.

Chill the fudge.  If you have the time and patience, chill for at least 4 hours, or overnight before cutting or unmolding.  Or put in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes and carefully unmold.  I’ve read that tapping the filled mold will help pop any bubbles.  I didn’t try that and don’t know how well it would work.  There were some air bubbles but I was still very happy with how beautiful the oval molded fudge with the bird design turned out.

The hearts were a little trickier.  When I twisted and flexed the trays the little hearts tended to stick at the very bottom, which when unmolded is the top of the heart.  Again, some nonstick spray would probably have helped here.  I was able to reshape the hearts with a small off-set spatula but I decided a little cocoa powder or sanding sugar would give them a little cosmetic assistance.

The less you handle the shapes, the better.  I dipped the side of some hearts in pink sanding sugar and the tops of others.  Some I showered with a sifting of cocoa powder.

They’re not perfect.  They’ve got character.  And no matter how lumpy looking they are, they taste as silky and densely chocolate as the original fudge.

After filling the molds, I still had fudge mixture in the bowl to use.  It was about to become truffles!

I used my microplane zester and grated the zest from one orange into the fudge and stirred it in. I poured the fudge into an oval glass dish.

I chilled it in the freezer for about 15 minutes.  Than, using a melon baller, I scooped up balls of fudge.  A spoon would work too.

You can decide what size you want your truffles to be.  Mine were about the size of a walnut.

Roll the ball between your palms and drop it into a shallow dish of sifted cocoa powder and move it around.

Pop the truffle into a little pleated paper cup and it’s dressed and ready for Valentine’s Day.

Keep the fudge, fudge hearts or truffles chilled.  If you can keep from consuming it, it lasts quite well if kept in the refrigerator in a sealed tin or plastic tub.

Thank you for coming by and reading my blog.  As always, I encourage and appreciate your comments.

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