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Scharffenberger Gianduja

Posted by on October 12, 2005

Gianduja

The history of the Gianduja confection is not well documented and in fact contains some contradictions. Some sources claim that the idea of mixing chocolate and hazelnuts came during Napoleon’s reign (early 1800s) when the Mediterranean was blockaded and left Turin’s chocolate industry short of cacao beans. Hazelnuts were plentiful in the Piedmont region of Italy so grinding and combining a hazelnut paste with the cocoa was a way to make a more affordable confection.

Other references claim that Gianduja was born in the mid-1800s when Michele Prochet or Pierre Paul Caffael first figured out how to mix sugar, cocoa and hazelnut paste. The mixture was first called “givu,” dialect for “stub,” which was the shape the confection was originally rolled into. The name “Gianduja” is actually from the Piedmont region’s famous carnival mask because Prochet and his pastry assistants first made the product during Carnival season.

The most popularized form of Gianduja is Nutella, which European children eat for breakfast and lunch.

The combination of roasted hazelnuts and chocolate, for whatever reason it first came to be, is a very pleasing flavor. It has been used in European confections for more than a hundred years, but hazelnuts have never been terribly popular in the United States.

The Scharffen Berger Gianduja differs from the traditional Italian Gianduja in several ways. Most European Giandujas are made with milk chocolate and are very sweet. Our Gianduja is made with our 68% Semisweet chocolate and contains no dairy. The flavor, however, is quite creamy, a consistency which is the result of the hazelnut paste.

We searched the world for the most flavorful hazelnuts and we use Turkish hazelnuts for this product. Hazelnuts have been grown in Turkey since 300 B. C. Turkey is the world’s largest hazelnut producer.

Hazelnuts are also called filberts. They have a sweet, nutty flavor.

Sounds tasty