December is here which means that it’s officially time for our favourite indulgent treats, and a 31-year-old London-based cook has created the ultimate decadent winter warmer.

Ilhan Abdi’s foodie Instagram account has an impressive 35k followers and her YouTube channel gets millions of views and features a mouthwatering selection of her delicious, simple-to-recreate recipes (think creamy prawn pasta and cauliflower mac and cheese).

But one of Ilhan’s inventions has particularly caught our eye –  her Nutella hot chocolate, which she made and then posted the video on Instagram. Delicious and delightful, her super simple recipe has garnered over 25,000 views and 2,000 likes. 

Turns out, simple, delicious food is Ilhan’s favourite thing to make. Her passion is cooking “any hearty meal which uses the bare minimum of accessible household ingredients.” Pasta in particular is something she says she could “eat for every meal of the day.”

She likes to incorporate her Somali heritage into her cooking, too, and she has a whole playlist on her YouTube channel focused on creating tasty Somalian pies, cakes and more. This and her family are where her love of food stems from, and she explains that “growing up, I was always exposed to a different meal for every day, and I guess it was my mother’s way of exposing us to our traditional Somali dishes yet introducing British and European cuisine.”

A lot of her ideas come from experimentation, though, and when talking about how she came up with the idea for her Nutella hot chocolate, she says that it just sort of happened. 

She explains that, one morning, as she was covering dates stuffed with almond butter in some softened Nutella (which she says we really have to try), “I was heating up some milk to add to my daily coffee while staring at the Nutella, and I just had one of those ‘why not’ moments.”

Even though she’s never really liked regular powdered hot chocolates, when she fused the Nutella with her milk she “knew it was a life-affirming moment.” 

She very generously decided to share her stroke of genius with the online masses, and we couldn’t be happier, especially because of how simple it is to make.

You start by pouring around 200ml of your milk of choice into a pan, and then add however much Nutella you see fit. Simply stir it all together over a low heat until the milk and Nutella are combined, and that’s your hot chocolate made.

Then, you can add your favourite toppings, although Ilhan recommends “whipped cream and grated dark chocolate.” Or, if you really can’t get enough chocolate, try “letting a Kit Kat melt its way in there.”

Et voila! You have a super tasty treat for those cosy winter nights.

A note on Nutella and the controversial ingredient palm oil – the company says it is now using palm oil from a fully sustainable source, but there are alternative chocolate spreads with no palm oil, such as Vego, if you prefer. 

Her other dishes, both sweet and savoury, look mouth-wateringly good, as well. Take her gooey chocolate hazelnut cookies for example, or her chai spiced French toast.

She also has a video where she shows her followers how to make delicious deep pan pizza from scratch, and the crispiest roast potatoes you’ve ever laid eyes upon. 

Images: courtesy of Ilhan Mohamed.