As you’ve come to expect, here is OMG! Yummy’s Saturday edition of French Fridays with Dorie.
How could I resist? Page 414 of Around My French Table displays a picture of toasted brioche dripping with nutella, scattered with toasted, chopped nuts. The fork is dripping with the chocolate hazelnut confection and in the background is a jar of orange marmalade and two small bowls of chopped nuts and sea salt. If any of these delectable ingredients is not your cup of tea, then by all means, click onward. But if you are in the same mindset as me that anything with bread, chocolate, sea salt, and toasted nuts must be worth a try, then read on. 
Nutella Tartine from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook Around My French Table opens with “It is impossible to overestimate the French love of Nutella, the chocolate and hazelnut spread invented in Italy about seventy years ago and eaten with gusto all over most of Europe.” The photo was enough to hook me, the headnote just sealed the deal.
I envisioned many ways I could turn this from a simple snack to a major undertaking — make the orange marmalade myself, bake the brioche from scratch, find a recipe for chocolate hazelnut spread instead of using the purchased jar. But really, if I can’t even complete the recipe in time for the Friday post, that line of thinking was just going nowhere. So instead, I found some brioche buns I had in the freezer, stopped at our new grocery store (yippee!) and purchased a jar of organic marmalade and some fresh hazelnuts.
This morning I took the buns out to defrost, toasted the hazelnuts, opened a new jar of nutella from the pantry, snapped some photos and the preparation began. It is quite simple – once you’ve gathered your ingredients including toasting and chopping the hazelnuts and slicing the bread if necessary (challah would also be yummy), you just brush the brioche with the melted butter and slide them under the broiler to brown. When you pull them out, be ready to slather with the bitter sweet orange marmalade, drip the nutella on with the tines of a fork, scatter some sea salt and lots of toasted, chopped hazelnuts and eat it as quickly as you can. My daughter and I found the juxtaposition of the bitter marmalade, the sweet nutella, the chunky hazelnuts, and the crunchy, buttery bread intoxicating.
Dorie explains in a side note that in France, a chocolate sandwich is a common after-school snack – the French version of milk and cookies. I recall Molly Wizenberg in her book A Homemade Life writes a whole chapter about the first time her parents took her to Paris and the food she most remembered was a chocolate sandwich. Sometimes it is really just the simple things…
To read more renditions of this recipe, check out the French Fridays with Dorie web site and buy Dorie Greenspan’s award-winning cookbook Around My French Table. You will cherish the purchase and learn from each recipe and story that she shares.
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I’m Beth – a seasoned marketing professional, kitchen table storyteller, and enthusiastic food consumer. Hang out in my virtual kitchen and I promise to feed you recipes, stories, and lots of inspiration!
In France, the brioche would be from the bakery and the other ingredients likely would be, too. So your version’s authentic. 🙂
Teresa – I can always count on you for an uplifting comment! I think Dorie did mention that nobody makes their own brioche in France because it is so widely available. Heading over to see your post soon…
That looks yummy 😀
Tastes even better than it looks!
There’s nothing wrong with simple and good. Life needs things like that.
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve done my share of complicated cooking but life just doesn’t allow that right now. So simple and yummy it is!
I grew up with Eurocrem (another Italian hazelnut-chocolate concoction, in which the layers are separated, very yummy), rather than Nutella, and for a few years I was an addict:) But I never really liked this spread on bread, even though it is ubiquitous in Europe.
I sometimes get in to that groove that I have to make everything myself (my sister teases me all the time and asks when I am buying the herd of cows to make my own leather products:), but if you can find a source of great products that satisfy your standards, I don’t see a problem with making it easier on yourself:)
I hope you are having a great weekend!
How interesting Lana – never heard of Eurocrem or saw it when we were there a few years ago.
The only person in my young life that made most things from scratch (at least baked goods) was my grandmother. My mom and aunts, not so much. While I aspire to learn what my grandmother did, I can’t kid myself that my life just doesn’t afford me the luxury to do it all. I experiment when I can and I take short cuts when I have to!
Simple sometimes really is best. Why mess with a good thing!
Great minds….
Thanks for coming by.
again what you made looks and I am sure tastes yummy. As I have said before grandma would be proud of your baking abilities. She used to put chocolate, cocoa and nuts in her
coffee cake and it was to die for. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Oh how I wish I had that recipe….
Simple is good! I tried making my own marmalade and it turned out to be a waste of time and money and ended up in the trash!
Oh no! Well it’s not a total waste – you always learn something in the kitchen, even when you don’t succeed! Thanks for stopping by!
Terrific post! We are going to obsess over this for days. Seriously yummy and so simple. Everyone should have a tub of Nutella in their pantries, non?!?! Loving your blog.
Thanks – the admiration is mutual.
And don’t obsess over this – just make it and eat it! It will be a perfect Valentine’s treat!
If a chocolate sandwich is a typical after school snack in France – then I want to live in France and be a student who comes home from school and needs a snack. These look wonderful! Tres jolie!
I know, right?! Really a glass of red wine and a dark chocolate sandwich could sustain me. Ok maybe some water and fresh strawberries too but that’s it!
OMG! YUM, for real! I’m going to try this as soon as I can… have to gather the bread and marmalade, but the Nutella I have. Can’t wait!
Do it soon – it will put a smile on your face from the very first bite!
Mmm…yum, I would LOVE that!
Happy SITS Day to you!
Thanks! Come by for another nosh soon!
Yummo! I will have to remember this one! Simple yet sounds delicious!
Happy SITS Day!
Thanks. It’s low on effort, high on flavor!
I frequently have Nutella as an afternoon pick-me-up. I say it’s comparable in nutrition to peanut butter (with a little less fat and a little more sugar. My way is smoothed lightly on a rice cake (gasp! treason!).
You have to put something on a rice cake to make it worth chewing. I had this conversation with my son recently – he said they are just vehicles for peanut butter, aren’t they? But nutella is starting to sound like a good alternative to the pb. If you’re really worried about the sugar/ingredient content, you can actually make your own.
Thanks for stopping by!
The nuts on top look yummy!!
Ah yes, roasted hazelnuts to mimic the flavor in the nutella – they were lovely!
we eat chocolate sandwiches every day!
OMG YUM!