Nutella Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

I love nutella. I don't know if i love it because in my mind it is the chocolate version of peanut butter or because it is just so good. Nutella goes good with anything.. toast, fruit, peanut butter, the possibilities are endless. 

I was home for memorial day weekend and wanted to bake something. It also happened to be the same weekend that all of the local high schools were graduating. Since I was searching for an excuse to bake something, I made these as graduation cupcakes.

I put marshmallows in the batter of some of the cupcakes just because I was curious to see how they would bake. 

Unfrosted cupcakes always look so sad... unless they're funfetti. 

They were cheered up soon. I stuffed the cupcakes with the frosting as well. Just because you can never have too much good frosting.

This was the first time I attempted to make buttermilk to use in my recipe. Its really easy to do, all you need is a cup of milk and some vinegar or lemon juice.

I found this beginner cake decorating kit in my house. I attempted to use it to frost the cupcakes. Key word: attempted. The decorating tips worked really well to help stuff the cupcakes with frosting. Once I changed tips and tried the use it to decorate the tops of the cupcakes, the frosting bag sprung a leak and everything went down hill from there. So I resorted to the never fail plan of just using a knife.

I tried to get fancy and decorate some with mini chocolate chips. I definitely need to work on my decorating skills...

But I figure if it is tasty enough, people won't care what it looks like and will just want to eat another.

This would be my best friend enjoying the cupcakes. They were actually made for her boyfriend.

Recipe:

For the cupcakes:

1 box chocolate cake mix

1 C milk ( equal to amount of water on box)

1/3 C vegetable oil ( or amount on box)

3 eggs ( or amount on box)

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp cocoa powder

For the frosting:

1 C nutella
2-3 tbsp milk
2 1/4 C powdered sugar
1 C butter (softened)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350. Line a cupcake pan. 

1. Make the cupcakes. Add the lemon juice to the milk and let it sit for 5 minutes. This is a way to make buttermilk. 

2. Add the milk, vegetable oil, cocoa powder, and cake mix to a bowl and combine. Stir until their are no lumps.

3. Pour the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean

4. Make the frosting. Combine the softened butter and nutella. 

5. Add the vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of milk to the nutella mixture. 

6. Add the powdered sugar next, the amount you add will depend on how thick you want your frosting. I would start by adding 1 1/2 cups, then 1/4 a cup at a time after that until the desired consistency is met.  

7. Add more milk to thin out the frosting. The milk will also help the frosting get the creamy taste. 

8. Once the cupcakes are cool, frost and decorate away! 

Makes 24 cupcakes