Gianduja
Confection
Top 10 pairings
Gianduja is the Piedmontese marriage of chocolate and hazelnut — a smooth paste or firm bar made from roasted hazelnuts ground with sugar and cocoa into a silky, mahogany-brown mass in which the nut, not the cocoa, leads. Traditionally around 30 percent hazelnut, it is softer, sweeter and more meltingly rich than plain chocolate, and it is the direct ancestor of every chocolate-hazelnut spread that followed, Nutella included.
Picking a good onedrag
Glossy, softly yielding, toasted hazelnutDull, tacky, crayon-rancid
Weeks on in a cool cupboardEveryday bestThe building block: chopped into ganache, warmed as a bonbon filling, layered through cakes and entremets where nut and cocoa both carry.
Look at the surfaceA grey-white haze or pale streaking after a warm spell, the shape held but the shine gone
Break a piece and press itA firmer, cleaner break with more resistance - a dark gianduja, or a piece from a cold room
Smell a broken pieceStill nutty and cocoa-ish but flattened - the vanilla and the toasted top note have gone quiet
The wrapper and its labelHazelnut and cocoa both named inside the 20 to 40 percent band, dark or milk stated outright