Hazelnut filling rolled into the middle of a thin cake and dipped in chocolate. Sounds like the dream date for your cup of coffee right? You can find the recipe here : https://mandicrocker.com/2040-2/ and also Page 33 of the Southern Italian Desserts cookbook by Rosetta Costantino.
It started out innocent enough…just a thin sheet cake cut into fourths. After spreading the filing on each piece you roll them like a swiss roll. Since Eric was the first one to bake, his warning text of ,” I way overstuffed mine so they’re not going to be pretty. Watch out . I didn’t even use half of the nutella mixture”, probably saved me from a husband-eye-roll-inducing incident of chocolate-hazelnut oozing between my finger and up to my elbows as I tried to stuff every last bit in there. Lets just say, it would not have been pretty, especially the spectacle where I would have to lick all that off my fingers and hands. As you can see in the pictures below, Alex looks like he did it perfectly, Eric’s is bursting and mine are kinda flat and marginally messy. Not a bad start, so into the fridge they go to chill.
Alex 
Eric (like you couldn’t tell) đŸ˜‰ 
Mine
Next we were told to cut those rolls into 3 equal pieces. Looks like Eric and Alex accomplished that, I however decided that was to big and just cut them into 4 or 5 equal-ish pieces. But the next step is were it really went off the rails for me. The coating ingredients: 6 oz dark chocolate, 3 Tablespoons oil, 6 oz white chocolate and pistachios. Melt the dark chocolate with the oil and dip the rolls in the chocolate. Fabulous, I did that. But things didn’t look right.
Alex: I’m clumsy and dropped a couple in the white chocolate instead of dipping.
Eric: Dipping them in chocolate was not easy. I didn’t enjoy it.
Me: I just did that, they got reallllllly soggy…were yours like that? I didn’t enjoy it either.
Eric: My first couple did but I started moving quicker.
Alex: Mine were fine.Maybe I just went fast.
Me: Just realized I put all the oil in with the dark chocolate instead of 2 and 1 for the white . OH well, see how it is after it chills.
As you look at the first picture below, I’m sure you can imagine how thin that chocolate was and how easy it was for that thin stuff to fly around my kitchen as I was trying to quickly dip without burning my fingers as the soggy mess (think bread dipped in milk) tried to repeatedly end it’s misery by oozing into the chocolatey depths. Okay, maybe a little melodramatic, but it was a rough time.
Soooo, didn’t look any better after chilling, obviously. Since I had more chocolate, I melted some in the correct ratio format this time, and redipped. Still not pretty, but 100 times better than how they looked the first time, and no longer soggy.
Even though my batch was a technical and visual nightmare, I think I made up for it due to the fact that I was the only one who remembered pistachios. Also discovered that pistachios and white chocolate hide a myriad of faults, so mine turned out looking not-so-bad. Eric’s look like they could be on the cover of a magazine ( he sprinkled a little sea salt on top, I stole that idea too) and Alex said of his : Looks bad but tastes good. He had kind of a marble effect going on.
Kitty Approved 
Mine 
Alex
They were very good, but very very rich. Even a chocoholic like me found it hard to eat a whole one. But I had a brilliant idea….I cut them into bite size pieces and put them in the freezer. Every time the chocolate monster was nipping at my heels I would grab a little nugget or two. Perfect with a cup of coffee! They don’t get hard, they are perfect. I used to freeze Hostess Ding Dongs and eat them straight from the freezer too. Reeses peanut butter cups and Girl Scout thin mints…also fantastic frozen. Wow, I’m really digressing here…and now I want chocolate.
Final thoughts. Even though things didn’t go exactly how I envisioned, I enjoyed the process and connecting with my Italian ancestors through food (which is the Italian way after all!). We also learned how to make homemade hazelnut-chocolate spread, which was amazing. I love baking with my boys, even though we are states apart, this keeps us connected.