Cookbook for World Nutella Day 2022

Have a tasty World Nutella Day!

I am having some nutella today, on some sourdough bread I made last week to test out a bread kit. I wanted to test out some of the recipes from nutella: 60 Classic Recipes from Simple, Family Treats to Delicious Cakes & Desserts by Grégory Cohen, but to be blunt, the ingredients would have taken time to find supplies which may be standard in the EU but not so much in the small Indiana city where I currently live. Instead, on February 12, 2022, I'll be using one of the recipes as inspiration for my Good Cookies charity Valentine's Day post. I hope you'll check back in for that. Today I'm just going to talk about the cookbook and show you some images from it. I got this book via the Amazon Vine program where I have already written a review (as well as on Goodreads); this is a bonus article for the publisher, White Lion Publishing, imprint of The Quarto Group in London. The book came out in 2021, after that year's World Nutella Day.

Cohen is a French chef and polo player. He has created a lovely to look at cookbook. Every recipe has a photo; if not on the same page, then on a two-page spread and labeled on the photo. This is a huge plus and increasingly uncommon for most cookbooks I get to review these days. Even if you are more into nutella food porn versus nutella cookbooks, this could be an excellent choice for you. So let's look at a few pages.

Here is a two-page spread.

Here are two examples of the photo included with the recipe. All photos are on the right hand side of the book. The recipes all have the same layout.

The binding on the hardcover book lets the pages lay down fairly flat. This book is too big for even my cookbook book holder to hold up easily so I'm glad it lays so flat.

This cookbook has more than 60 recipes; I counted 68! So bonus! These are divided into the following chapters: "Down to basics," "The great classics," "Cookies and small cakes," "Choux pastry," and "Desserts for guests." This cookbook also has a good introduction to the history of nutella and how to use it. The "Ingredient Index" in the back of the book is quite useful though sad when I realized how difficult it was to find everything to make even one recipe as I went through them. The "Glossary" was less helpful because it didn't have even half of the terms I wanted (and sometimes needed) quick and correct definitions for while other phrases and terms were utterly familiar to me because they are actions or ingredients I use regularly. There are differences between Europe and the USA in  ingredients and techniques we use in our everyday kitchens and this cookbook just drove that fact home again..

I was eager to test out this cookbook for you all. I got the biggest jar of nutella available in my local grocery store, this 2.2 pound or 1kg jar, when I found it and luckily it was on sale. This matters because I am the only person in my household that will and can eat nutella and I started counting calories on January 2, 2022. One family member hates all tree nuts and refuses to even try nutella. Another is allergic to most tree nuts and while he tried nutella once (by accident) and had no terrible reaction, he is rightly wary of trying it again. I didn't know what nutella even was before I spent a year living and studying in Rome, Italy, in 1990/91. It just wasn't widely available yet in most of the USA. I've been enjoying it as a spread mostly, though for Valentine's Day charity post I will be using it (still as primarily a spread).

The recipes in this book are not simple to me, the Iowa gal who grew up with basic midwestern ingredients and cooking techniques. The names of ingredients and the kitchen tools may be quite common in France, the UK, or the rest of the EU, but not where I am living right now. Given that I wasn't offer a stipend to test out this cookbook and that there is still a global (and statewide) pandemic out there, finding items proved expensive or impossible. That made me sad. I will keep this cookbook with my others and if I should be in a bigger kitchen and have more resources so I can try out a recipe as written, I'll write another post here on The Chocolate Cult for you all to check out.