Hazelnut Creamer

I came on here to post this and then got all interested in everyone else's blogs and almost forgot. Anyway, hazelnut creamer is what I put in my coffee every day (unless I have honey). I love the stuff so I run out of it a lot. It was time to try making my own. The recipe I saw said one can of sweetened condensed milk, 1 cup of milk and hazelnuts. I didn't have sweetened condensed milk but I have evaporated milk and if you add a cup and a quarter of sugar to it, you have sweetened condensed milk (yes, that is a LOT of sugar). The recipe was a big vague. It said to take the hazelnuts (a half pound, I hate it when things are measured in pounds- so just used the as many as I felt like cracking) and put them in the milks and let it set for 6 hours. It did not say if the hazelnuts should be chopped so I didn't know but I chopped mine some. I also didn't have 6 hours to wait around. So I went on to the second step where you heat the milk and hazelnuts and keep it cooking for about a half hour without boiling it. It smells pretty good while you are cooking but not like hazelnuts.

So since it didn't get to soak for 6 hours, I though that since I didn't need it until morning that I would just cook it and let the hazelnuts sit in it until morning.

This morning came and I tried it in my coffee and while it tastes like a good creamer (how could it not with all that sugar in it?) it did not have any hazelnut flavor to it as far as I could tell. I will try it again tomorrow and see if it improves any. If not, I'll keep trying. I probably didn't have enough hazelnuts or it really does need to soak first and then get cooked. We'll see.