Hazelnut offers you creamy, nutty flavors adorned with a fun crunch. The sweet overtones of this nut make it even more delicious. Even though we can explain it like this, the taste feels more complex.
Human beings have been consuming hazelnuts for over 8000 years. This intoxicating flavor has made its way into many food items over time. Understanding what does hazelnut tastes like can make you enthusiastic about its chemistry.
Hazelnut flavor often gets compared to the taste of chocolate and coffee. The truth behind these arguments has some intriguing explanations. The aroma and taste of hazelnut can mesmerize your taste buds and nostrils.
What Does Hazelnut Taste Like?
Hazelnut tastes nutty with a faint sweetness. It unwinds a smooth buttery flavor in your tongue when you eat it. Crunchiness stands as another characteristic of hazelnuts. The gentle crunch can open up a bundle of flavors in hazelnuts. Its distinctive flavor can keep individuality even among robust flavors.
Hazelnut also gets called filberts or cobnuts. Its texture and color may vary from type to type. Cobnuts have a round or oval shape, whereas filbert has an elongated appearance. It has a bigger size than cobnuts.
You can consider hazelnuts as the best choice with confectionaries, spreads, and coffee. The flavor and texture, as well as its depth, justify this argument. Roasted hazelnuts taste better than raw ones. You can intensify the taste by making it into a paste and adding sugar. The famous Nutella and other spreads use hazelnut to achieve that flavor punch.
Hazelnuts have been around us for a long time. Evidence from Scotland suggests that they used to process these nuts for consumption. It has a hard shell and a bitter-tasting paper-like skin. You need to remove both of these before eating them. Use a nutcracker or hammer for the shell, and dry them. After roasting carefully, remove the skin to get rid of bitterness.
Hazelnuts have a love affair with chocolate. If you savor this magical combination even once, it will hit your favorites list. Chocolate and hazelnut flavors entangle and crunchiness and acts as a refreshing palate cleanser. Hazelnut adds value to the food items in which it gets included. You can replace any nuts with this one without diminishing the flavor.
Hazelnut contains many significant nutrients that we need. As a rich source of Vitamin E, it helps to keep your skin, hair, and nails in shape. It can also help with cholesterol and immunity. Calcium, magnesium, and vitamin B keep your bones and muscles in good health. It can also improve digestion.
Does hazelnut taste like chocolate
A common belief surrounding hazelnut says that it tastes like chocolate. This argument doesn’t prove true in reality. Chocolates come with the ‘chocolaty’ taste of cocoa beans. We have talked about the hazelnut flavor above. Apart from the buttery richness you get from both, their flavors have nothing in common.
Two facts may have contributed to this misconception. One could be the taste of Nutella, which combines chocolates and hazelnuts. The other reason can surprise you a little. They both have some chemicals in common that impart a specific aroma.
Bean pyrazine or 2-methoxy-3-isopropylpyrazine gives substances a bean-like smell. This compound makes hazelnuts and chocolate smell chocolaty and nutty at the same time. When two food items have a similar odor, people could misunderstand it as having the same taste.
Where Does Hazelnut Flavoring Come From
The delectable flavor of hazelnuts results from the work done by chemical compounds. These naturally occurring compounds awaken the taste receptors on your tongue. When this happens, you get the sensation of various flavors.
Hazelnuts contain ketone, known as Filbertone, inside them. It gives the nut its roasted, sweet flavor. You can prepare hazelnut oil that accommodates a lot of this stuff. The interesting use of this compound enables us to find out impurities in olive oil. Cheap hazelnut oil often gets used as an impurity.
We talked about some compounds called pyrazines responsible for aromas in the above sections. There we came to know about 2-methoxy-3-isopropylpyrazine which causes a bean-like smell. Another pyrazine accounts for the roasted almond-like smell of hazelnuts. Together they create a unique hazelnut aroma.
Conclusion
Hazelnuts or filberts have sweet, creamy, nutty, and earthy flavors that feel exotic. This complicated flavor stands up to other flavors in every recipe that uses it. The soft crunch of hazelnut makes us think that it kind of melts on the tongue. These features enable us to use them in chocolates, ice creams, coffee, and others. Hazelnut coffee is famous for its delectable earthy and sweet yet bitter flavor.
Some people state that hazelnuts taste like chocolate. It cannot be true as both have very distinctive flavors. But their aromas do have some similarities. Compounds like ketones and pyrazines impart its enticing taste and smell. Hazelnut has a pleasant flavor that no other nuts can compensate.