Natalie's Sunflower Seed Nutella

This recipe from holistic nutritionist Natalie Brady is a saviour for those with nut allergies who’d like a chocolatey nutty spread. Her delicious seed “Nutella” is sweetened with maple syrup and uses sunflower seeds and cacao powder as the base.

“Who doesn’t love Nutella! Well, when you have a nut allergy like me your options are slim to none. That means I’ve got to get creative! So here you have it, my healthy delicious nut-free Nutella. Even my fiance` was impressed with this one!

I remember trying nutella as a child. I absolutely loved it! Little did I know at this stage I was allergic to nuts. I very rarely consumed nuts as a child as my brother is highly allergic, so we never had them in the house. Nutella would be a special treat I got to enjoy at a friends house.

In my early 20’s when I moved out of home I fell in love with nut butters. I would literally go through a jar of peanut butter in a few days, however the more I consumed them the more health and skin issues I had. Little did I know at the time it was the nuts causing all my symptoms. I went to numerous doctor’s visits, changed so much of my external environment such as moisturisers, creams, washing powders to all natural products. I even removed all dairy and gluten from my diet. Nothing worked, then one day I went and got a skin prick test done which finally revealed the answer, nuts!

I immediately removed all nuts from my diet (it was so hard at the time as I was obsessed with peanut and almond butter, I literally would put them on everything), but I’ve never looked back.

So here I am today, nut free. I’ve found it challenging at times when cooking and baking as so many healthy recipes (especially raw baking) contain large amounts of nuts. I’ve had to improvise and start creating my own recipes.

My nut allergy is the reason why all my raw baking contains sunflower and pumpkin seeds, as I have few options to go off. Majority of the time you can swap them out for almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, whatever you fancy.

So there you have it, that’s the reason why I created this recipe and why I don’t consume nuts. I hope you love it as much as Boris and I do. It’s super nutritious from the sunflower seeds and raw cacao and can be used in many different ways, but is especially good spread on a nice fresh loaf of bread. My favourite is sourdough, topped with fresh fruit.”

Natalie’s Sunflower Seed Nutella

2 cups sunflower seeds

1/3 cup raw cacao powder

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup rice milk (or any nondairy milk alternative)

Method

1. In a medium non-stick fry pan, toast sunflower seeds over medium-high heat. Stir frequently to avoid burning. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature before using.

2. Add cooled sunflower seeds to a food processor, process until it has turned into a thik, creamy butter, stopping intermittently to scrape down the sides of the bowl. This could take 5-10 minutes in an old processor.

3. Once it’s turned creamy add remaining ingredients and blend for an additions 3-5 minutes until smooth and creamy. (If it doesn’t go creamy you could add 1-2 tbsp of melted coconut oil or milk to make it smoother)

4. Pour into an airtight container and store it in the fridge for 1 month. It if lasts that long!