Five Ways to Celebrate World Nutella Day

Groundhog Day has always been my favorite holiday. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandma making the day extra special with pancakes. We also decorated plain white napkins in the day's theme of spring or winter. The celebration was simple and beloved.

I also learned a life-long lesson. While it may be 20 degrees and snowing outside, we could still make a simple day nice and even a little special.

Now, as a mom, I try to find these similar opportunities to acknowledge what's special about a day, and bring some extra fun to our kids' week. We celebrate traditional holidays like St. Patrick's Day or April Fool's Day, but we also get a kick out of "May 4th" — also known as Star Wars Day — and newer holidays like Giving Tuesday, which is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

I recently discovered a new favorite holiday — "World Nutella Day," which happens to be today. This day may become a contender with Groundhog Day for my all-time favorite day of the year.

If you haven't experienced Nutella before, it's a chocolate-hazelnut spread. Like peanut butter, it can go on just about anything and has a smooth and rich chocolate flavor that is unique unto itself. This is not a joke or hyperbole, but our family goes through six of the 33.5-ounce jars every year. I also carry a 1-ounce mini jar of Nutella in my purse for those days that go really bad. This day was made for our family, and you better believe we're going to be celebrating it!

In honor of World Nutella Day, I thought I would share some of my favorite recipes and uses for this decadent spread.

• Molten Nutella Pancakes. Drop small dollops of Nutella into pancake mix and cook as instructed. The Nutella will be thicker than the pancake mix, so you may need to swirl and separate with two spoons so that it is evenly distributed throughout. The pancakes will have delectable pockets of warm Nutella. I love these served with strawberries.

• Nutella fudge. I make this Nutella and sea salt fudge recipe from the Tasty Kitchen blog every year at the holidays.

• Nutella and banana crepes. My family loves crepes for almost any meal. Our easy recipe is adapted from Alton Brown's recipe and adds 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Crepes are a wonderful canvas for almost any filling — sweet or savory — but my favorite is Nutella and bananas.

• Nutella can also be served with apples as a dipping sauce, spread on toasted bread for a quick afternoon snack, substituted for frosting on cupcakes or eaten straight out of the jar with a spoon (my personal go-to).

I wish you and your family a delightful World Nutella Day. Hopefully, it will perk up this regular Wednesday and make it a day worth celebrating!

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