Hello, all! It feels good to be back. How has everyone been?

I’m jumping back onto the curly blogging highway with these NUTELLA cupcakes. These have a delicious ribbon of hazelnut goodness swirled into heavenly cake batter. When you bite into them, you get all the gooey Nutella scrumptiousness stuck to your teeth! I can’t even begin to describe how much I fell in love with these.

When I made these, I didn’t think I would ever blog about them. That’s because I have a secret: I keep good recipes to myself. (Insert evil laugh.) Especially the REALLY good ones that I’ve spent time kitchen-testing. I’m bad like that, heehee.

But you know, I am thankful for many things today: for writing my first post after three long weeks, for friends who helped me handle the all the overflowing “batter in my mixing bowl” when I was gone, for the fact that I’m racing home after work to finish reading Breaking Dawn (Toni! If you’re reading this, all I can say is, GAWD!!!) and for the month of August (my birthday month!).

I am overflowing with gratitude and can’t help but share the recipe for these yummy things. I first came across these from She Bakes & She Cooks, because I have an unabashed love for Nutella and was trying to find a baked good that used it on the net. These yield WONDERFUL cupcakes: the batter bakes up to a delicate crumb that’s a perfect backdrop for the rich hazelnut cream.

Nutella Cupcakes

10 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
Nutella, approximately 1/3 cup (I used a mini cookie-dough scoop for each cupcake)

1) Preheat oven to 325F.

2) Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.

3) Cream together butter and sugar until light, about 2 minutes.

4) Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated.

5) Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains.

5) Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin liner with batter. They should be 3/4 full, if you’re not using a scoop.

6) Top each cake with 1 1/2 tsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the nutella.

7) Bake for 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

I hope you make these! They’re the perfect antidote to a blah afternoon–both to cook, and to eat!

I hope to make my way to everyone else’s neck of the world wide woods. Welcome back to me!