Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes

My son graduated from kindergarten yesterday. Time seems to fly by especially fast when you have kids. He attended this kindergarten for the past two years, and I wanted to make some cupcakes to give teachers and staff. But I didn't really want to mess around with frosting, especially in this warm weather when the frosting would melt into a mess during the commute to the school. A little google search for "self-frosting cupcakes" yielded Nutella to be the most popular ingredient used for this self-frosting purpose. To be honest, it's not the prettiest looking cupcake around, however the self-frosting convenience and the promise of good flavour won over the lack of aesthetics aspect, and off I went to buy a jar of Nutella. I looked at several recipes, and the one on Fauzia's Kitchen Fun looked the nicest and several of her readers had tried the recipe with good results. I followed it relatively closely with only slight modifications because I didn't have the time to compare recipes to make one of my own. Hubby's first comment upon seeing these cupcakes was that it wasn't very good looking, but after biting into a cupcake, he said it tasted good.

Cupcakes topped with Nutella and ready for the oven:

Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes

Ingredients

Tip: Make sure the butter and the eggs are at room temperature.

1.5 cups (180g) plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
112g butter
0.75 cup (150g) sugar
2 large eggs
0.5 cup (100mL) milk
1.5 teaspoons vanilla essence
Half cup of Nutella spread (I used most of a 200g jar)

Method

1. Sift the flour and baking powder.

2. Line your muffin tray with cupcake liners. Preheat oven to 170degC.

3. Beat the butter with the sugar until light and creamy.

4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

5. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat until everything is just combined.

6. Pour the batter into the cupcake liners, filling up to two-thirds of the cup. On top of every cupcake, add about 1 heaped teaspoon of Nutella. Using a toothpick, swirl the Nutella into the tops of the cupcakes.

7. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the batter/white part of the cupcakes comes out clean. If you stick the toothpick into the Nutella it will be gooey because the chocolate will not solidify during baking, so take care to check the white parts.

8. Remove from pan and let the cupcakes cool on a rack.

The Nutella cupcakes fresh out of the oven: