KITCHEN STORY: NUTELLA SWIRL CUPCAKES

Lately I have been back to being a Nutella nut. I put it on everything or just have sudden cravings to eat a spoonful (or two...or more...). I was set loose on the Speculoos (cookie butter) obsession last year so Nutella was on the back-burner, but now it has returned to the forefront of my consuming thoughts. (Oh, so witty.)

One morning while making simple vanilla cupcakes for my friends' birthdays, I was craving another spoonful of Nutella. And while licking the spoon clean I thought, "if I'm craving Nutella so much, then my friends must be craving it too." (Obviously. Because that is how everything in life works.) So I thought I'd dress up the plain cupcakes with Nutella and these came to life. Honestly, I thought these turned out looking ugly since I haphazardly piped the Nutella on top in a rush. But I guess someone's ugly is someone else's beautiful since my sister saw them and wouldn't let me frost them. I'm glad she said so since now I can see the beauty in their imperfection.

Ingredients: Makes 18-24 cupcakes (adapted from Spoonful)
2.5 cups all purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 (3.4 oz) package of instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup Nutella (put in Ziploc bag or pastry bag)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line regular cupcake pan with liners or grease cupcake pan.

In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar and eggs together with electric mixer (or if you are too lazy to clean a mixer, like me, use a fork to mix). Add the flour, vanilla pudding, milk, oil, baking powder and vanilla and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Fill cupcake liners or pan until two-thirds full.

Microwave Nutella in Ziploc/pastry bag for 10 seconds, cut off a small corner/tip with scissors. Pipe swirls or any design on top of each cupcake. Carefully tap cupcake pans against the countertop a few times to let the Nutella settle slightly in the batter.

Bake for 18 minutes or until tops are a light golden brown and bounce back to touch.

Buon appetito my fellow Nutella lovers! Hope you enjoy this recipe & leave comments if you have any questions.