This ‘hazelnut chocolate spread’ taste test is really, let’s face it, the Nutella taste test. Everyone calls hazelnut chocolate spread Nutella, even if it’s not technically the Nutella. But, if I’m honest, I’m a bit fuzzy on the legality of just calling this collective group of spreads ‘Nutella’ when only one of them actually is the real deal. And even though I seriously doubt anyone in any position to care about any of that is reading this blog, I still feel I should err on the side of caution.

So then: the hazelnut chocolate spread taste test, as I promised you last week. Just go with it.

Really, this post is for my brother. He’s two years younger than me, and when he was a teenager he survived pretty much exclusively on Nutella on toast, Pot Noodle, and jacket potatoes covered in cheese. If he’s reading this then he’s possibly protesting vehemently at this slander of his teenaged dietary habits, and perhaps I am exaggerating. But not by much. Anyway, this is my blog, and I think Max is less able to go suing people than Nutella are, so I can say what I like. Those are the three things I remember him eating most. Consequently, pretty much all the drinking glasses in our kitchen when we were growing up were ex-Nutella jars.

As before, I feel I need a rambling disclaimer: obviously, I am doing this in my kitchen and not in a lab and I am not a scientist. These are the opinions of one person – that said, one person who has been trained to taste for quality. Also, the products used in this series are just examples – obviously each supermarket has, say, eight or nine different types of chocolate spread or whatever the product may be, and I’m not going to try every single one because what am I, made of money?

Finally, I should highlight that I tasted all the products blind, and at the time of tasting and making my notes I didn’t know which product came from which shop. I sat in one room while my glamorous assistant (er, my husband), prepared the samples in another. Any notes added regarding packaging and so on were only done after blind tasting, when I learned which supermarket had made A, B, C, D, or E.

The Blind Taste Test: Hazelnut Chocolate Spread

A – Nature’s Store – 5/10

• A looser mixture, sliding down the spoon, but looks nice and shiny. Tasted immediately very sweet, and felt quite thin and insubstantial in my mouth. Tasted more like cocoa powder than chocolate.

B – Sainsbury’s – 8/10

• A bit of shine, but not much. Immediately nicer than A – thicker, richer, with a more pronounced chocolate taste and a pleasant texture. Hazelnut flavour coming through well too. Really tasty.

C – Waitrose – 7/10

• Looks less shiny than the others. Obviously thicker, with more texture – not as smooth as other samples. You can taste the hazelnuts coming through, but it’s a bit too sweet.

D – Aldi – Nutoka – 5/10

• Quite matte, quite thick, holding itself on the spoon. Tastes very smooth, quite sweet. Fairly unremarkable but not very strong hazelnut taste, and a bit of a cocoa powder aftertaste.

E – Nutella – 7/10

• Shiny and smooth, moving around quite a bit on the spoon – one of the thinner products but very obviously spreadable. Tastes very creamy and smooth, with hazelnut and chocolate flavours coming through.

F – Tesco – 6/10

• Thick and firm, very creamy and smooth. Quite sweet though, and not much of a flavour of hazelnut.

Conclusion

Oddly, I have never been a massive hazelnut chocolate spread person. You’d think I would be. But I think I was put off by over-exposure as a teenager. These days I tend to use it in baking (Nutella brownies, anyone?), but not in much else. I do think, in baking, it would make a difference which spread you used here. There was lots of variation in appearance, texture, and flavour between the samples.

It’s worth noting that the Nutella was by far the most expensive product – unsurprisingly, as it’s the brand leader in the world of hazelnut chocolate spread. And it was good. You can see why everyone likes it so much. But I honestly did slightly prefer the Sainsbury’s own brand offering, and if I need hazelnut chocolate spread for anything in the future then that’s the one I am going to go for.