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Hazelnuts versus Filberts: Same Nut

I grew up in New Jersey, lived in a bunch of places mostly east of the Mississippi until almost four years ago when we moved to Oregon. I call them hazelnuts.  Born and raised Oregonians call them filberts.

Oregon’s Willamette Valley has about 650 Oregon farm families growing hazelnuts on 28,400 acres.  This provides about 90% of all the nut use in the nation and accounts for the third largest crop worldwide after those grown in Turkey and Italy.

As I wrote before in this blog, Tackling a Standard,  my kids love Nutella so my task even before I became a commercial food processor was to make a hazelnut spread with chocolate for them.  Last year we made a few small batches and they sold out at the McMinnville Farmers’ Market.

Today, we tackled the task again and there is no doubt in my mind we have turned a wonderful corner on production. Both the plain and chocolate versions are amazing……you have to come taste!!

Filbert’s Chocolate Revenge – Known everywhere else as a filbert, the local hazelnuts are offered in a chocolate spread. Perfect on toast but also can be used to make an amazingly decorative breakfast bread. Portland’s Creo 73% chocolate once again is the star. This is not going to taste the same as the one you know because the ingredient list is shorter, with no artificial anything. 9 ounce jar $10. Ingredients: hazelnuts, chocolate (with cane sugar), vanilla. See the Recipe Page for a cookie that uses this as a filling.

Nutty Hazel’s Spread – No, this is not about how my wacky cousin is losing her waistline. This is about one of Oregon’s world famous agricultural crops, the filbert!  This delicious nut spread will be available only in small batches and maybe, just maybe, we will make it to the next harvest in the fall. 9 ounce jar $10. Ingredients: hazelnuts, that’s all!

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Tackling a Standard

When we moved to Oregon almost 3 years ago I realized I was surrounded by orchards of hazelnuts. I decided I would make nutella for my kids for the holidays and so I did. The recipe called for refrigeration and the next year I called the Food Safety hotline at Oregon State University to find out if I could keep canned nutella in the cupboard. They took a few days and called me back with a simple answer: no. So I once again made nutella for the holidays but in small jars, promising to make more midway through the year. I didn’t.

The next year, last year, I had become a professional commerical food processor and still had no answer, but in January of this year at several trade shows I saw lots of nut butters and I spoke with the processors. I learned the “secret”.

By roasting the nuts until they are held above 185 degrees for 30 minutes, any bacteria of concern is killed. The nuts can then be ground and voila! your home processed hazelnut butter is shelf safe. Finding a European recipe for the chocolate version sealed the deal and then I faced a hurdle that was even harder. Finding the nuts at a discounted price proved to be difficult.

Here in Oregon most orchards have contracts to deliver their crop to the distributor and few producers hold out any for their own use or sale. I chatted with a few but was told it was not possible.

Then last week Graham and I headed over to the optician we have learned can do amazing things with difficult prescriptions and there, in the shop, were signs about hazelnuts for sale.IMG_1260

So we quickly got to work and prepared the nuts by soaking and then roasting and then we got to work grinding them. IMG_1291

Last week we were able to produced about a dozen jars of plain hazelnut butter we called Nutty Hazel’s Spread in time for the farmers’ market.  We teased customers with the coming attraction of Filbert’s Chocolate Revenge and heard squeals of delight in anticipation.

So today we once again soaked and roasted and went through the grinding but this time we added creo’s 73% chocolate. Creo is a small producer of chocolate working closely with the farmers. They receive the beans, roast and then produce chocolate in Portland.IMG_1290

Adding a small amount of coconut oil to help the spreadability, we were able to jar up 2.5 dozen. Yeah!!!

Now, it is important to note that it does not taste like the commerical Nutella you may know and enjoy. Here is their label.IMG_1264Here is our label. You will notice the list of ingredients is considerably different. label

I would hope it would taste different.