Put 200 g Hazelnuts into a food processor and process on the highest speed for 10-15 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl at regular intervals, until you have a smooth nut butter.
Meanwhile, place 8 Pitted dates in a bowl with 50 ml Water and leave to soak for 10 minutes.
Add the dates and water, along with 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract, 80 g Cocoa powder, 130 ml Whole milk and 2 tablespoon Maple syrup to the food processor with the hazelnut butter.
Process the mixture on high until it is smooth. Transfer to a jar and store for up to 1 week in the fridge.
Notes
If you are trying to convince your kids that this is the real thing, then after you have finished a jar of Nutella you can wash it out and fill it with this. They will never know!
You need a high powdered food processor to make this. You can use a blender, but you won't get a really creamy and smooth Nutella.
To make it thicker and more spreadable, use less milk in it.
Blending time will depend on the blender that you are using. Some will take longer than others.
To make this healthy Nutella really smooth, you could add a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil to it. This would change the flavour a little though.
The more full your food processor is, the easier it will be to blend the ingredients. So, if you doubled the batch of this, it would blend faster. But then you would have a lot of Nutella - not that that is a bad thing.
If you really wanted to, you could even make this recipe sugar free. It would taste very bitter though.
Make sure to sift your cocoa powder if it is clumpy.
You can add a pinch of salt to balance out the sweetness of the sugar and the nuttiness of the hazelnuts.
If you want to make it softer when it comes out of the fridge, spoon out your serving and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds.
To make this as budget friendly as possible, then buy your hazelnuts in bulk in whole food shops. This works out much more cost effective than buying smaller bags in the supermarket. You will usually find them loose, rather than buying them bagged.
To make this Nutella a little more indulgent, you could melt some dark or milk chocolate to mix in at the end. It would make it more sugary though.