I have been doing experiments in chocolate, because I’m so in love with the taste of hazelnuts and chocolate, as the Italian invention gianduja, but this is my own rustic variation of it. I will tell you quite personally and revealing, the tastes that belong together, cioccolato con nocciole e caffè (chocolate with hazelnuts and coffee) , in the afternoon satisfies a deep and intimate craving from within me, so I strive on to perfect it. The real gianduja is made quite differently, with but I aspire to first find a balance of milk chocolate that is barely sweet, and by adding finely ground hazelnut paste gives it another dimension, soft and velvety, so mild, so meant to be accompanied by a little cup of rich coffee ~~ really, the finest pleasure of a moment!

♣   Cooking Notes  ♣

• In a mortar and pestle I ground toasted hazelnuts — it took a while and I could have ground the paste longer, refining it much more by releasing the oils out of the nut solids better, but impatience won over, and I sacrificed my nut paste too early to the melting chocolate.
• My chocolate mix is an easy method to get a barely sweet milk chocolate, without having to purchase a conching machine to mix the separate basic ingredients (like cacao powder, milk powder, cocoa butter, etc) But instead I blend pure white chocolate (with cocoa butter, not palm oil) and unsweetened cacao paste wafers, melted in a bowl over barely simmering water. 
• I wasn’t sure about the chocolate’s ability to solidify after mixing in such an amount of hazelnut paste, so I poured it over a bed of whole hazelnuts to give it marvelous success anyway, a soft bite into a load of crunchy hazelnuts! I just keep the broken pieces of the hazelnut chocolate in a jar in the freezer which is great at least in the summertime.
• I will be refining my gianduja further along, perhaps molding it into classic gianduiotti shapes, we’ll just have to see where it takes me. (( click 1st image to go to slideshow ))

Thought I’d post this one too , just the milk chocolate mix without hazelnut paste mixed in, poured over the toasted hazelnuts, mixed in the dish a little before cooling and breaking up . . .

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