Nutella Cupcakes
Part 2 of my baking afternoon with Sophie was spent making Nutella cupcakes. Also known as Hazelnut and Chocolate cupcakes, if you use the generic term for Nutella!
The cupcake is just a standard chocolate base, with a small hollowed out centre section where a dollop of Nutella (or any hazelnut and chocolate spread) was inserted. We decided to place the hollowed out ‘top’ of the cupcake back over the spread, so that it didn’t get too mixed in with the buttercream.
I was really pleased with how the cupcakes turned out – perfectly level, very light and spongy to touch. It has taken a lot of practice for this to happen! For the first time in a while, I didn’t use the larger cupcake cases (or muffin cases), but somehow the mixture managed to still produce 12 smaller, sized cupcakes, albeit, some were a little fuller than I’d normally do.
The buttercream recipe is an alternative to the standard chocolate buttercream recipe, in that instead of using cocoa powder, it uses Nutella. This really helps to bring out the hazelnut flavour in the cupcakes and makes it taste different to a normal chocolate cupcake.
The cupcakes tasted just right – not too sweet and sugary, with a strong hazelnut flavour. The sponge was the best part, it was light and fluffy to eat, the Nutella filling mixed with the buttercream tasted delicious.
Sophie used a piping bag for the first time and she did a pretty good job. We used a large star tip to ice the cupcakes, worrying that we would run out of icing, but as always, we never did. She couldn’t decide whether she liked the big or little swirls to decorate, so she done both. We decorated with sugar sprinkles and voilà!
