Last night I was perusing tumblr when I came across this amazing blog, Bake It in a Cake. I was drawn in with a Pumpkin pie in a cupcake recipe, but what ultimately hooked me was their recipe for Nutella and Vanilla cupcakes with Nutella buttercream frosting. (I know, "yum" right?!)
I panicked, though, because they only had a photo of a cupcake and no recipe! eek! Luckily, they posted it tonight and I was able to whip up a batch of delicious cupcakes for dinner. Yup, cupcakes for dinner.
I made a few alterations to the recipe -- instead of putting a chocolate wafer in the cupcake (since I don't have any) I just used the nutella. I also halved the icing recipe since nobody in my family is a huge fan, and even half was still a little too much for us. I actually over-iced the cupcake in this picture just for the blog post.. normally we just spread a little bit on top like butter ;-)
Our oven is broken, so it overheats and doesn't spread the heat evenly. Baking anything is really hit or miss, but these came out fine. The nutella sunk to the bottom of the cupcake instead of floating in the middle, but I actually think I prefer them that way! It was like a little cupcake sandwich with nutella on the top & bottom and cake in the middle!
And to top off the deliciousness, I opted for half of a Ferrero Rocher candy instead of a sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts. They are, without a doubt, some of the most scrumptious cupcakes I've ever tasted! My mom predicts that once my dad gets home from work & we have three people working on them, there won't be any cupcakes left by morning ;-)
ps. I'm planning on making the pumpkin pie cupcakes but with gingerbread cupcake instead of cream cheese! I'll let you know how they come out!
pps. Sorry for the crummy picture quality, I usually only take pictures in natural lighting, but I made these at night and wanted to snap a photo before they're all gone by morning!! :)