Keto chocolate torrone is a rich chocolate shell filled with sugar free chocolate cream and roasted hazelnuts. It’s a classic Italian treat made low carb!
Have you ever heard of torrone? Well, you’re about to get a wonderful lesson in chocolate deliciousness, because this keto chocolate torrone is an incredibly decadent sugar free dessert.
And if you love my Keto Nutella recipe as much as I do, you’re going to be delighted by this rich holiday treat. Yet another wonderful way to use low carb chocolate hazelnut spread.
I actually made this recipe last year around the holidays. But as happens every year, I have too many wonderful keto desserts to share with you and not enough time to do it all.
Waiting a whole year to post this gorgeous thing was pure agony, but I held out and now here it is! Be sure to add this keto torrone to your must-make list. Trust me, you will be happy you did.
What is chocolate torrone?
You may be more familiar with the traditional Italian torrone (pronounces toe-roe-neh), which is a honey nougat filled with pistachios or almonds. This chocolate torrone is not the same and is actually much easier to make.
In Italian, it’s called Torrone dei Morti, or Torrone of the Dead. Sounds rather morbid, doesn’t it? It’s traditionally served on November 2nd, which is All Saints Day.
I first spied this lovely concoction on An Italian In My Kitchen. A quick perusal of the recipe showed it to be a loaf-shaped chocolate shell filled with hazelnuts and a rich chocolate hazelnut cream.
I could hardly tear my eyes away from this chocolatey creation, studded with roasted hazelnuts. It’s just my kind of thing, so I needed to give it a keto makeover.
Adapting chocolate torrone for keto
A typical chocolate torrone takes copious amounts of dark, milk, and white chocolate, as well as plenty of Nutella. Very sugary and not so keto-friendly!
Swapping out the chocolate hazelnut spread for a low carb version was easy. And replacing the dark and milk chocolate with sugar-free versions was easy too.
For the white chocolate, I opted to go with cocoa butter. There is some wonderful sugar-free white chocolate available now from both ChocZero and Lily’s but it does tend to tack on a few more carbs to the recipe.
Cocoa butter, on the other hand, is pure fat and truly healthy fat at that. So a little cocoa butter, plus a little butter for a softer consistency, helped keep the total carbs for this recipe down below 8g per serving.
The final product? Over the top delicious!
Tips for making keto chocolate torrone
This take on the Italian dessert isn’t hard to make, although you do need several heatproof bowls for melting the various chocolate components. You also need a bit of patience to let things set in the freezer a few times. Here are my best tips for getting it right:
- Be sure to line the loaf pan with parchment paper. You won’t be able to get your chocolate torrone out of the pan if you don’t. Make sure it’s covering all the sides too, with no gaps for the chocolate to seep through.
- Only paint the dark chocolate coating halfway up the sides of the pan, because your torrone will only be about 2 inches. You don’t want to waste any of the chocolate!
- Use about ⅔ of the melted dark chocolate for this part, and reserve the rest to cover the chocolate hazelnut filling.
- Make sure you freeze the torrone after each step to get a nice chocolate shell that doesn’t mix in with the filling.
- For the filling, melt the dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and cocoa butter together first, until smooth. Then stir in the sugar-free Nutella and butter until well combined.
- The Nutella can be your own homemade version or store-bought. I honestly recommend homemade to keep the carbs and the cost down!
- Use roasted hazelnuts for the best flavor. I purchase bags of pre-roasted, unsalted hazelnuts at Trader Joes, and I use them for my chocolate hazelnut spread and in recipes like this.
- If you can’t find roasted hazelnuts, simply purchase them raw and toast them in your oven at 350F for about 7 to 10 minutes. Once they’ve cooled, you can use your fingers to rub off as much of the husks as possible.
How to serve and store chocolate torrone
The torrone should be kept in the fridge when not being served so it doesn’t get melty. It can last up to several weeks as long as it’s wrapped up tightly.
I recommend letting it come to room temperature before slicing, so the chocolate shell doesn’t shatter as you cut through it. Use a large sharp knife that can cut through the hazelnuts.
You can slice it into 20 thinner slices, or you can cut 10 thicker slices and cut each of those in half before serving.
More delicious keto hazelnut recipes
- Keto Chocolate Hazelnut Granola
- Keto Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti
- Keto Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Scones
- Keto Hazelnut Crusted Sea Bass
- Keto Hazelnut Snack Bars
- Keto Double Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Keto Chocolate Torrone
Ingredients
Dark Chocolate Coating
- 4 ounces sugar-free dark chocolate chopped
Chocolate Hazelnut Filling
- 3 ounces sugar-free dark chocolate chopped
- 3 ounces sugar-free milk chocolate chopped
- 3 ounces cocoa butter chopped
- ¾ cup homemade sugar-free Nutella
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 1 teaspoon hazelnut extract or vanilla extract
- ¾ cup hazelnuts, roasted
Instructions
- Line an 8×4 inch loaf pan with parchment paper with overhanging sides for easy removal.
- In a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, melt the dark chocolate, stirring until smooth. Brush about two thirds of the chocolate over the bottom and about halfway up the sides of the pan.
- Place the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes to set the chocolate coating. Set the bowl with the dark chocolate aside.
- Take another heatproof bowl and set over the pan of barely simmering water. Add the dark chocolate, milk chocolate and cocoa butter and stir until melted, then stir in the homemade Nutella, butter, and extract until smooth. Stir in the hazelnuts.
- Spread this mixture into the chocolate coating in the pan and return to the freezer until set, about 30 minutes.
- Return the bowl of dark chocolate to sit over the pan of warm water to re-melt. Spread the melted chocolate over the hazelnut filling evenly. Place the whole pan in the fridge for 3 to 4 hours to firm up.
- Lift the torrone out of the pan by the edges of the parchment and flip out onto a cutting board. Use a sharp knife to cut into thin slices.
Anne says
Living in Australia I can’t source sugar free milk chocolate – what could I use as a substitute please?
natasha says
These are so delicious and the best thing about this recipe is that it is keto-friendly, so healthy! Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful dessert recipe,
Betsy says
This is so good! And addictive… Even being keto friendly I’m going to have to really be careful with my intake! Yummmmmmmmm!
Katie says
Love this recipe and love that it’s keto! Such a yummy treat when you’re craving something chocolatey but don’t want all the carbs!
Jen Dolan says
You have the best dessert recipes. Especially anything chocolate. You never disappoint!
Beti says
Hi, I made it from scratch with a little change as it was night.
Made the nutela and it came out fabulous. I continued to the rest and used only dark chocolate as this is what I had at home. I think the next time I’ll add more hazelnuts. So good!!!
(Now in the oven your New York style cheese cake)
I thank you for your recipes and generosity.
Happy Holidays!
Carolyn says
Sounds great!
John-Mark says
Hi Carolyn!
I prefer to use metric weights whenever possible, as they are more exact, but your metric plug-in has me confuzzled.
1 ounce is 28g (28.35g, actually). Yet your metric weights for 3 ounces (rounded) are as follows:
3 oz. / 84g sugar-free dark chocolate, chopped
3 oz. / 85g sugar-free milk chocolate, chopped
3 oz. 57g cocoa butter, chopped
Also, your recipe calls for 4 ounces dark chocolate, which your plug-in says is 170g, but isn’t 28.35 x 4 = 113.4g?
What am I missing?
Carolyn says
The first two are directly from Lily’s chocolate counts on the back of their bars so go with those gram measurements (the bars are 2.8 ounces and they say a serving is 30g and there are 2.5 servings per bar… so I think it’s their measurements that are off). I think the plug in went wonky on the other two. Those filled in automatically from the plug in. Go with the ounce/gram measurements as they should be, and I will fix those two.
Elaine says
Well, this looks delicious! Two things:
1. It’s possible the 3 oz of dark chocolate got overlooked in the directions, although it’s apparent that it belongs in step 4. Would that be correct or am I confused?
2. I’m not a fun of hazelnuts so I’m thinking I’ll try your “notella” recipe with pecans and then use pecan halves in this recipe. Any thoughts about how that might turn out?
Thanks so much for all of your wonderful recipes!
Carolyn says
You are right, I missed adding the dark chocolate. Fixed it! I can’t see why it wouldn’t be delicious with pecans too.
Christine says
I’m confused by the appearance of two amounts of dark chocolate but only one reference to dark chocolate in the directions. Is the problem with the list of ingredients or with the instructions? THANK YOU! I’m looking forward to trying this recipe. I compared the net carbs in your recipe (12net in 12 tablespoons) with Pyure’s SF Chocolate Hazelnut spread (30net in 12 tablespoons!); I think I’ll learn to make it myself and make it ahead of time!
Carolyn says
Yes, I missed that. You add the remaining dark in with the milk and cocoa butter. Fixed it!
JOE HUSOSKY says
Going to try this for my Cuban in-laws, they do not believe that Torrone is not Spanish in origin. This was always my favorite type. All the commercial sugar-free ones have Maltital as the first ingredient.
GEORGENE says
Looks delicious! At first when I saw it, and saw the name, I thought Toblerone! Unfortunately it’s not, but it still looks great, though.
Minor nit: All Saint’s Day is November 1, and All Soul’s Day is November 2. 🙂
Those Catholic lessons stick around for a long, long, time!
Carolyn says
Thanks!
Andrea says
My good! Looks delicious!! A must for holiday season. Do you have any panettone recipe?