Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Nutella Swirl Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Okay, I'm really excited about these cupcakes!  I remember the first time I was exposed to Nutella.  We had a German exchange student who asked my mom to pick some up at the store.  The rest is history.  Nutella is a permanent fixture in my pantry, but this is the first time I've taken it beyond the realm of spreading it on toast.  And, well, I'm glad I did.  Fair warning though, these are SWEET.  If you don't LOVE Nutella then don't make them.  Because you probably won't eat them all and wasting Nutella should be a sin.  One thing I really like about this recipe is that you can tweak the icing measurements to make it the way you want it.  So when making your frosting, keep in mind you can do whatever you want to it.  I'll put the base recipe in the ingredients list, then put my revisions in the actual recipe.


I did the worst job taking pictures today.  Worse than usual.  Of everything.  The process AND the outcome.  I need a better camera.

Whatevaaaa, here's what you'll need for the cupcakes:
1 box vanilla cake mix prepared according to package directions (You could also use batter from scratch, but I had a bad experience last time I tried cupcakes completely from scratch so I've been a little hesitant to try again) and poured into cupcake pans
Nutella (softened)

Frosting:
1 stick unsalted butter (softened)
1/4 cup milk
4 cups powdered sugar (sifted)
1/2 vanilla extract
1/4 cup Nutella (softened)
Hazelnuts (chopped)

After you've divided your batter into cupcake trays, add about a teaspoon of Nutella to the top of each cup:


Swirl it around with a toothpick.  Easy enough, right?


Bake according to the directions on the cake box.


While those cool, make the frosting.  Start by beating your butter til it's creamy.  Add in 3 cups of the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla and beat together until creamy.  Add in the rest of the powdered sugar and continue beating.  Then add in the softened Nutella and beat until it's smooth and blended together.  Okay, now the fun part- taste test it.  If it's good, skip to the next step.  If it's not, add in what you need to make it taste better for you.  For me this consisted of more Nutella (probably close to twice the amount the recipe called for), an ounce of melted, semi-sweet baking chocolate, and more milk to make it lighter.  Just so you know if you've never made frosting before, more sugar makes it thicker, more milk makes it lighter.  Add either until you get the consistency you want.  Frost your cupcakes:


Garnish with the chopped hazelnuts.  And before I show you a picture of the inside of these things, I need to make it known that neither Wal-Mart nor Food Lion (at least the ones near my house) carries plain hazelnuts. I had to buy a $7 can of mixed nuts to get 18 hazelnuts.  That's all.  It was ridiculous.  And they were salted, so I had to rinse them off before I chopped them.  It was worth it though.  They were really yummy and added a nice texture to the cupcakes :D  Annnnnnnd eat 'em :D


Yummy :D

1 comment:

  1. I'm gonna make these for the kids but skip the icing;) not big on super sweet icing lol my kids love Nutella. I always skip the icing and make cupcakes more like muffins.

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