Chocolate cupcakes with Nutella icing

I hope you’re all outside enjoying this amazing weather. Hello sunshine! Yay!!!

SD arrived and one of her top requests was to make cupcakes. Usually we make these but I fancied something different (ie: chocolatey) and I remembered some Nutella cupcakes I’d had at a friends a few years ago.

I found this recipe on-line, from an American site, and I think it’s going to be my go-to recipe for chocolate cupcakes. The buns themselves are delicious, but the runaway star of the show is the light-as-a-feather Nutella icing. Thanks to Jen the Beantown Baker for sharing!

Nutella cupcakes

50g of dark chocolate, broken into bits
55g of cocoa powder (I used Nesquik; no, it’s not cocoa, but it worked fine)
230g of fine-ground sugar
115g of soft butter
78ml water
117ml milk
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla
230g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a heatproof bowl, combine the chocolate and cocoa powder.

In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the granulated sugar, butter, and water, stirring occasionally, until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Pour the butter mixture over the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.

Whisk the milk, egg, extra yolk, and vanilla into the chocolate mixture until combined.

In a bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until blended. Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth.

Let the batter sit at room temperature for 1 hour or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. I've now made the cupcakes with and without the resting, and experience shows that it works. Resting made a huge difference to the end result. 

Heat your oven to 180°C. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Jen says to bake the buns for 30 minutes or until the tops spring back when pressed lightly with a fingertip – I found that this took between 20 and 25 minutes, so keep an eye on them. Set on a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

I halved this icing recipe, and happily (and copiously) iced 7 buns with enough left over to ice the other 5. This is the recipe as Jen gives it. Note that I don’t have an icing bag or tube so I spooned the icing on top of the buns, and so didn’t have any waste from the lost bits of icing that always fall on the ground/get trapped in the folds of the bag etc… The leftover icing is currently in the freezer, so I’ll let you know if this is usable as soon as I take it out (probably in a couple of weeks).

Nutella icing

225g of soft butter
190g icing sugar
2 tsp of vanilla extract
125g of dark chocolate, chopped, melted and slightly cooled
100g of Nutella
1 tbsp milk
pinch of salt

In a bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, combine the icing sugar and butter and beat on low speed for about a minute.

Add the vanilla, and beat on low speed until well combined. Add the melted and slightly cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Add the Nutella, milk and pinch of salt, and beat on med-high speed for another minute.

The mixture was wonderfully fluffy and light. We decorated the iced buns with some hearts and some m+m’s.

Incidentally, I saw this article in the newspapers. I definitely agree that baking is good for your mental healh. And if you're mad with someone, bake bread (by hand). All that kneading is great therapy.

And in other (non-kitchen) news, I also saw these, and I'm waiting with my eyes on sticks for them to appear in the Belgian shops.