A bar in Naples is serving up a new take on Italian coffee, called the “caffé al bacio”. “Bacio” means ‘kiss’ in Italian, and much like the bacio gelato flavour, this involves using Italy’s premier hazelnut spread, Nutella.

The caffé al bacio uses a brandy glass with the inside coated in nutella, adding a shot of espresso coffee and some milk foam on the top, sprinkled with cocoa. It’s an even more elaborate version of the “marocchino” coffee, which is a bit like our mocha combining chocolate and coffee.

You can find the caffe al bacio at the Intra Moenia bookstore-coffee shop in Piazza Bellini, Naples. According to Italian Notebook, the bar is just down from the music conservatory so that sometimes you’re treated to a free musical concert in the form of practicing notes of music drifting down the street.

Source | ItalianNotebook.com

Continue reading: Caffe al bacio: coffee with a chocolate kiss in Naples

With Michele Ferrero voted the richest Italian in the world, it’s time to find out why. With 9.5 billion dollars, the 82-year-old occupies first place on the Forbes list for his country, and is at 40th place overall.

The Ferrero family is behind Italy’s famous chocolate hazelnut spread, Nutella. Nutella was created in 1964 in an era where importing chocolate cost money, and was a real example of globalisation nearly 30 years before its time. The origins of the product lie in a pastry shop in Alba, Piedmont where Michele’s father, Pietro, had started to experiment with other products. Michele himself then discovered the recipe in 1964.

With all that money, you might wonder how a modest hazelnut spread got to be so famous. But the recipe, the name and the logo have remained unchanged since 1964. For more information see the NutellaDay site or see our posts on a history of Nutella, how to make homemade Nutella, and even keeping mice away with Nutella. And if you want to party, there’s also NutellaDay.

Continue reading: The secret to being on the Forbes rich list lies in a nutshell: Nutella and Italy's richest man

It seems the world can’t get enough of Nutella, Italy’s famous chocolate hazelnut spread. Nutella on Facebook is one of the five pages with the most fans, and Forbes magazine has just voted Michele Ferrero aka Signore Nutella, the richest man in Italy.

The Italian entrepreneur has assets worth up to 9.5 billion dollars, and in addition to Nutella, the Ferrero product range includes Kinder chocolate, Tic Tac mint sweets and Ferrero Rocher. Even the new icecream product Gran Soleil is finding success in the fickle Italian market.

Michele Ferrero is 82 years old, and maintains that Gran Soleil will be his most successful product, even more so than Nutella. Ferrero wins first place ahead of even Silvio Berlusconi’s massive fortune of 6.5 billion dollars. Other Italian entrepreneurs on the list include Leonardo Del Vecchio of Luxottica with 6.3 billion dollars in 71st place overall, and way down the list at 224th place overall is Giorgio Armani with a fortune of 2.8 billion dollars. What economic downturn?

Continue reading: Forbes: Italy's richest man Michele Ferrero, or Mr Nutella, followed by Berlusconi

Italy’s Liguria region has an amazingly rich culinary tradition and if you’re looking for a great Italian crepe, then you can find it in Camogli, a town on the Italian ligurian riviera of Levante.

While you may not associate crepes with Italy, Liguria already has a traditional focaccia heritage and here, the owner of the Creperie Bretonne, Daniela, will advise you on the best combinations of ingredients.

The secret to this creperie is the traditional galettes bretoni - French crepes with butter, cheese and eggs. Here it takes on a mediterranean style with Italian ingredients, including vegetables, prosciutto, pesto and even anchovies. For sweet crepes, the quality is still excellent, with some of the best being done with butter and sugar, dark chocolate or of course, nutella.

You will find the Creperie Bretonne in Camogli at via Garibaldi 162. For telephone enquiries: 0185 775017.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Where to eat crepes in Italy: Camogli, Genoa

October festivals in Italy in autumn, could very well include the chestnut harvest and associated festivals. We held our annual (invitation-only) chestnut festival in the Valtellina yesterday (castagnata) and I have to say it’s a good year for chestnuts.

The harvest is later this year due to late ripening, but some lovely fresh chestnuts were around for the picking, which involved a team of us fanning across the terraces above Ardenno to find the fruit. The trick to chestnut picking (or chestnut hunting) is to go equipped with bags or baskets to collect them, and gloves if you’re smart - these guys really hurt.

On having plenty to eat (as usual we exaggerated and possibly put a hole in Ardenno’s chestnut harvest), we took them back to our hillside hut for cooking. Roasted chestnuts are wonderfully sweet, though we’re undecided on whether to cut the shell slightly or not. If you don’t, it appears that despite a few explosions, they roast all the same.

After getting our fingers all black on peeling them, we matched our chestnuts with nutella or honey. Look out for chestnut cakes in Italy in fall as chestnut flour is often used to make the castagnaccio (take a look our recipe in the next few days).

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Italian festivals: chestnut roasting and nutella at chestnut festival

We return to the theme of the great Italian invention, Nutella. When I was a kid at school I used to buy the little packets at the canteen with the mini plastic spatchel which were sold for the pricely sum of one dollar and…Mmmmmm! The history of nutella is interesting, and later we included the bit about how much mice like Nutella, and today we look at the home made version.

Nutella is excellent in making desserts, particularly good on bread and is often present in many alternative recipes of first and second course dishes. One spoon is enough to tempt both adults and children. While the original Nutella is the best, many similar products are on the market, and if you want to try it at home, you can check out this home-made Nutella recipe.

Ingredients for about 250 grams include: 45 grams of toasted and peeled hazelnuts, 30 grams of cocoa (containing 20% of cocoa butter), 30 grams of white chocolate, 350 ml of full cream milk, 65 grams of sugar, and one gram of soya. See below for the recipe steps.

Continue reading: How to make home made Nutella

Much loved by children and adults alike, fans of Nutella should not be surprised that smaller creatures also find this typical Italian delicacy irresistable. Nutella has a unique flavour such that mice have also been discovered to have a predilection to the hazelnut spread. And now the idea is to catch rodents using Nutella.

The news that leaving breadcrumbs seasoned with Nutella in your house is not a good idea, has circulated and reached industries that occupy themselves in pest control. After having done some tests, it has been demonstrated that rats and mice love chocolate, and in particular Nutella. And so now bait that is based on Nutella is being developed. Without this, if you leave your Nutella lying around you know that while the cat’s away…

Via | Gazzetta.it
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Nutella: contributing to pest control by catching mice

For our cuisine spot today, we’re going to dedicate ourselves to a very famous but overlooked Italian “delicacy” - Nutella. While the Americans have Oreos, and the Australians Milo and the English are famous for their old-school toffees, the Italians have introduced Europe, and indeed the entire world, to Nutella.

So what is this famous brown spread? Made from hazelnut praline, Nutella can be spread on toast or bread, eaten straight, used in gelato flavours and is the base for many of Kinder’s other products.

It may seem to be a simple product, but it has been the main source of treats for Italian kids for many years. Developed by Pietro Ferrero, Nutella has its beginnings in 1946 when the second World War and its associated dietary pressures pushed Ferrero to consider using a simple and abundant product from his native Piedmont - the hazelnut.

It was a grand expansion for a small sweet producer, and before long other facilities were opened up across Italy and Europe. This little nut is not to be underestimated; for 2008 Forbes magazine has classified the son of the founder, Michele Ferrero, as the richest Italian on the planet. Step aside, Berlusconi and the Agnelli’s.

The slogan “che cosa sarebbe il mondo senza Nutella” - what would the world be without Nutella - is not so over-the-top after all.

Via | Italos.it
Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: A concise history of Nutella