Gianduja chocolate was born by chance at the beginning of the 19th century, as a fortuitous expedient of Turin chocolatiers to compensate for their difficulties in obtaining cocoa supplies due to the continental blockade imposed by Napoleon.
They began to add roasted hazelnuts to the cocoa and sugar mixture in varying proportions.
This addition was still clandestine (roasted hazelnuts and almonds were considered adulterants) and only began to be explicitly declared at the beginning of the 20th century with the disclosure of the secret recipe for hazelnut chocolate known as Gianduja.