Nutella Lovers' Cupcakes

A few of you lovely readers requested the recipe for the Nutella cupcakes from my cookbook of the month for August - The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook, and so I am only too happy to oblige!

I made these as part of my selection for RSPCA Cupcake Day recently and there were a popular choice! It's amazing how many people (or particular, women) swoon at the very mention of 'nutella'. There's just something about it I guess. Personally speaking, it's something I avoid keeping in my pantry cupboard as it is just too dangerous. It all starts out innocent with a teaspoonful just to get a taste, then it's a piece of white toast with some of that delicious hazelnut-chocolate spread smeared on top.. and before you know it the whole jar's empty! Irresistibly evil....

This recipe comes from The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook. The great thing about this recipe is that the cupcake itself is quite light, so combined with the rich icing the result is not too over the top Nutella. The recipe and makes between 24 and 30 cupcakes. They will keep for 2 days and freeze for 2 months.

Hazelnut Cakes

2 & 3/4 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
200g softened unsalted butter
1 & 3/4 cups caster sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup natural yoghurt
1/2 cup hazelnut meal

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Line two 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake liners of choice.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter for 1-2 minutes. Add the caster sugar a third at a time, beating for 2 minutes after each addition. After the last addition, beat until the mixture if light and fluffy and the sugar has almost dissolved. Add eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition or until mixture is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.

4. Add a third of the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Add half the yoghurt and beat until combined. Repeat this process. Add the remaining third of the flour and beat until thoroughly combined; do not over-beat as this will toughen the mixture. Add the hazelnut meal and beat until combined.

5. Spoon mixture into cupcake papers, filling each about three-quarters full. I like to use a levelled off ice cream scoop to quickly and evenly divide the mixture. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a fine skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from the trays immediately and cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes before frosting.

Nutella Frosting

1 x 750g jar Nutella
1 tablespoon Frangelico (optional)
1/2 cup whipped cream

1. Spoon the Nutella into a bowl and stir in the Frangelico.
2. Put the whipped cream into a small bowl and fold ina quarter of the Nutella mixture.
3. Then fold the whipped cream mixture into the remaining Nutella.

Note: Above is the original frosting recipe from the book, however, I struggled with this. As it was a cold evening when I was making this, I ended up sitting the nutella jar in hot tapwater before transferring its contents to a bowl. I also had difficulty combining the nutella, frangelico and cream all together and ended up using a stick blender to combine the three ingredients sufficiently to achieve a spreadable consistency. I piped mine onto the cupcakes and topped with crushed hazelnuts. Sooo... you may need to improvise a little with the frosting recipe to make it work for you...  Alternatively - here's an idea I think I'll be using next time: Drizzle a little frangelico over the cupcakes and then frost with straight Nutella! :) Yum!


Tell me, dear readers, does Nutella do it for you?

Ladybird xxx

RSPCA Cupcake Day 2011

Today was my third year of participation in the RSPCA Cupcake Day, and it was a success once again... Thanks to the support of my family, friends and colleagues I raised $360 for the RSPCA! Hurrah, and a big thank you to everyone for their support of this wonderful cause :)

Vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream

This year I decided to keep my cupcakes simple, but no less delicious. I made my usual favourite chocolate cupcakes topped with ganache, as well as something new - a lovely Nutella cupcake which went down a treat with my fellow Nutella-addict friends. The recipe comes from this The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook - if you are keen for me to do a post on this recipe, please let me know!

'Nutella Lovers' cupcake

I also offered vanilla cupcakes with four different butter cream flavours - vanilla, strawberry, lavender and passionfruit. And because I'm not at all a fan of essences (oh don't even get me started!), I used all natural ingredients to create scrummy flavours. My favourite of the four was the strawberry buttercream - Mmmmm!

Vanilla cupcake with lavender buttercream

Vanilla cupcake with passionfruit buttercream

Vanilla cupcake with strawberry buttercream

Here is my recipe for you, my lovely readers...

Ladybird's Strawberry Buttercream (enough to generously top a dozen cupcakes)

an original Diary of a Ladybird recipe

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
pinch of salt
2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g punnet strawberries, washed and hulled
2 tablespoons caster sugar, plus extra to taste
1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus extra to taste
pink food colouring (optional)

1. First start on the strawberry syrup that will flavour the buttercream. Blitz the strawberries to a fine puree. Combine in a a small saucepan along with the caster sugar and lemon juice. Stirring occasionally, bring to a simmer over low-medium heat. Reduce to low heat and stir frequently until the liquid has reduced to a thick syrup. Taste as you go, adding more lemon juice / caster sugar as required. Pass the syrup through a fine sieve and set aside in the fridge to cool.

2. Now start on the buttercream. Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, vanilla extract and pinch of salt for a minute. Then beat in the icing sugar a third at a time, mixing well and scraping down the bowl after each addition to keep the mixture light and fluffy.

3. Finally, mix in the cooled strawberry syrup until well combined. If the mixture is a little wet for spreading/piping, simply add extra icing sugar. At this point you could also add a little pink food colouring if you wanted to enhance the colour, but I find that the syrup itself gives colours the buttercream nicely.


Till next time, dear readers

Ladybird x

Nutella Cake - chocolate, hazelnut & other friends

Due to travel and the business of getting back into routine since returning from overseas, I haven't had a lot of time to discuss the Cookbook of the Month, The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit. However, I could not let the month slip by without sharing with you some of the great advice that this book offers for flavour pairings. No such book would be complete without a decent number of pages dedicated to chocolate and suitable pairings and examples of such delicious duos...

The usual and delightful suspects are there - chocolate & almond, chocolate & raspberry, chocolate & peanut, but there are some suggestions that rouse my curiosity and creativity...

Of course, the pairing of chocolate and its good friend the hazelnut comes as no surprise. The combination is probably known in the best form of the world renowned spread Nutella. It may not be especially daring, but by golly it works... Here is a recipe for a cake that combines chocolate and hazelnut (as well as a little hazelnut liqueur) to make an easy and decadent treat that won't last long! And yes, it's no misprint - it calls for an entire jar of Nutella ;)

Nutella Cake
Adapted Nigella Lawson recipe (serves 8 very generous Nigella portions, or 10 regular portions)

Ingredients
6 large eggs, separated
Pinch of salt
125g soft unsalted butter
400g Nutella
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
100g ground hazelnuts
100g dark chocolate, melted

100g hazelnuts (peeled weight)
125ml double cream
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
100g dark chocolate
25g milk chocolate

Method

1. Grease and line a 23cm springform round tin. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, and then add the Frangelico (or whatever you're using), egg yolks and ground hazelnuts.
3. Fold in the cooled, melted chocolate, then lighten the mixture with a large dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding the rest of them in a third at a time.
4. Pour into the prepared tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cake's beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.
5. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden-brown in parts: keep shaking the pan so that they don't burn on one side and stay too pallid on others. Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative: if they go on the ganache while hot, it'll turn oily.
6. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur or water and chopped chocolate, and heat gently. Once the chocolate's melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until it reaches the right consistency to ice the top of the cake. Unmould the cooled cake carefully, leaving it on the base as it will be too difficult to get such a damp cake off in one piece.
7.Ice the top with the chocolate icing, and dot thickly with the whole, toasted hazelnuts. If you have used Frangelico, put shot glasses on the table and serve it with the cake (this is optional, of course).

If you like chocolate and hazelnut as a pairing, why not consider some of these ingredients as unusual companions to chocolate as suggested by Niki Segnit, author of The Flavour Thesaurus:
- Lemon
- Chilli
- Cardamom
- Ginger
- Pear
- Anise
- Tomato

I endeavour to one day give some of these pairings a try in my kitchen - if only there were more time for cooking in life!

But tell me readers, have you ever tried any unusual flavour combinations with chocolate? And were they successful?


Ladybird x

Chocolate & Nutella Macarons

I think it's fair to say that 95% of the world's population likes nutella, so how could nutella filled chocolate  macarons not be delicious?! If you feel the way that I do about nutella, you will understand my reluctance to keep it in the pantry cupboard. Why? Because it simply doesn't last. Nutella on warm bread, nutella on crepes, nutella on a teaspoon, nutella on a dessert spoon, nutella on a finger and then, suddenly, it's all gone!

The idea behind these macarons came from meeting a lovely French girl named Sandra. Sandra is a friend of a friend and has since moved overseas with her partner. However, in the relatively little time that she and I spent together, she opened my mind about French cuisine and became somewhat of a reference point for all things French. An avid baker and home cook as well, Sandra would tell me fantastic stories about food and wine in France, and wonderful recipe ideas. She taught me how to say 'macaron' properly. She informed me that no one in France really buys Moët Chandon because it is considered to be a rather inferior product in France. Most importantly, however, she told me of the Nutella Cookbook. A cookbook filled with hundreds of recipes using the delicious chocolate hazelnut spread - sweet and savoury. Nutella spaghetti.. Nutella Cake... The list goes on. I was speechless. I was in nutella dreamland. It was time for Nutella to feature once again in my pantry.

Alas the cookbook she referred to is in French, and with my Francophone friend now living on the other side of the world, my quest to source a version in English continues.. Until then, I will have to be a bit creative. Not that sandwiching macarons with nutella is outlandishly creative, but it is wickedly decadent :)

Chocolate Macarons
Adapted recipe from The AWW Macaroons & Biscuits

3 aged egg whites (I left mine out overnight in a bowl covered with clingwrap)
1/4 c (55g) caster sugar
1 c (160g) icing sugar
1/4 c (25g) cocoa powder
1 c (120g) ground almonds
2 tsp cocoa powder, extra
Nutella, for the filling

1. Grease heavy oven trays and line with baking paper.
2. In a food processor combine the almond meal, icing sugar and cocoa powder and pulse briefly in a few 2 second bursts. Then sift the mixture twice and set aside.
2. Beat eggwhites in a small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form, starting slow then gradually building to full speed. Add caster sugar a little at a time, beat until sugar dissolves.
4. Fold in the almond meal, sugar and cocoa mixture in two batches.
5. Spoon mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a 1 cm plain tip. Pipe 4cm rounds about 2cm apart onto the trays.
6. Tap trays once on bench firmly to remove bubbles and so the macarons spread slightly.
7. Dust macarons with extra cocoa powder through a sieve; stand 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 150 degree celsius.
8. Bake macarons between 15-17 minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely on trays.
9. Sandwich the macarons with the nutella, and be transported to nutella heaven!

Tell me readers, what is your favourite way to eat nutella?

Ladybird x