Ferrero Rocher Brownie Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Generally, I like to try and space out blogging about similar flavours but too be honest I've been baking with Nutella SO much recently that it's proving difficult! Also, I instagrammed this picture of the cupcakes earlier and my sister messaged me to say her and her colleagues were drooling over the pic and since it's her turn to bring cakes in to work on Wednesday she'd like the recipe so I figured it had to be done!!

So hot on the heels of the Fudgiest Nutella Brownies, I bring you these Ferrero Rocher brownie cupcakes with Nutella frosting. 

 Our time in Scotland is very swiftly coming to an end, we have just a week and a half left! So when some of my mummy friends organised an impromptu picnic for today, since it was going to be nice weather...and in Scotland when the sunshine finally comes you do drop everything and get outside, I decided it would be one of my last chances to bake for them and so I'd better pull out all the stops!

So I whipped up my all time favourite Martha Stewart Brownie Cupcakes as the base, because they are so fudgy and delicious...and I'm not going to lie, because they can be made in just one bowl and don't require turning my Kitchenaid on because the baby was napping!  When she woke up, I brought her into the kitchen in her little bumbo as my 'sous chef' whilst I whipped up this creamy dreamy Nutella frosting - Ella just loves the loud noise of the Kitchenaid so was more than happy to sit and listen to it working its magic!

...and of course no Nutella cupcake is complete without a Ferrero Rocher topper! So a whole, I was considering cutting them in half but I figured if we were going to go decadent we might as well go all the way, Ferrero Rocher was placed on top of each mound of frosting and some melted Nutella was drizzled across them as the finishing touch!

If you're a chocolate lover...you are going to love these, if you are a Nutella lover - even better! Go and whip up a batch today, you will be so happy that you did!

Ferrero Rocher Brownie Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting:

Makes 12

Adapted from Martha Stewart via Cupcake Crazy Gem

175g dark chocolate

50g milk chocolate
113g unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

3/4 tsp salt

3 large eggs

65g cup plain flour

30g cup cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F.  

Place both chocolates and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

 Remove bowl from heat.  Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine.  Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Fill cupcake cases until 3/4 full.  Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until an inserted knife comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, for 20-25 minutes*.

*Mine were ready at 22 minutes - you want moist crumbs to still be attached to your inserted knife since these are brownies and fudgy, and not cake like.

Nutella Frosting:

From My Baking Addiction

113g unsalted butter

185g Nutella

pinch of salt

1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

340g icing sugar

4 tbsp heavy cream or milk

12 Ferrero Rocher chocolates

4 heaped tsp Nutella, melted

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and Nutella until thick, fluffy and well combined for about 5 mins.  Slowly add in icing sugar, and continue mixing until well blended.

Add salt, vanilla, and 2 tbsp heavy cream or milk.  Blend on low speed until moistened.  Add an additional 1-2 tbsp of heavy cream or milk until you reach desired consistency*.

Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

*I added 3 tbsp of milk to create stiff enough frosting that would hold its shape when piped.  If I'd had cream in the house I would have rather used that as it makes for a tastier frosting!

Frost cupcakes.  Add a Ferrero Rocher on each one.

Melt 4 heaped tsp of Nutella in a microwave safe bowl for 1 minute.

Transfer to a piping bag, snip a tiny bit of the end and drizzle over the cupcakes.

Eat and enjoy! 

Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes for Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club

My Cupcakes by Martha Stewart is one of the very first Cupcake books I got waaay back in 2009 when I was just 'getting into' cupcakes (you can tell from the pure delight on my face in the picture below that I was pretty excited to receive it!) Recently I came across an awesome blog full of cupcake loving bakers who are baking their way through that very book - and it's called Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club - don't you just want to be a part of something that sounds so cool?! I know I did! 

This month was the first recipe I've joined in with and how fitting that it is the recipe on the very page that has fallen out of my Martha book because I have used it that much. This brownie cupcake recipe is my go to recipe and I'd say I've baked with it at least 100 times over the past few years and that is not an exaggeration! Remember when I made a zillion mini's for a tea party, and my popping candy rainbow cupcakes for Iron Cupcake, and my patriotic USA stars and stripes cupcakes for a Miss Usa Murder Mystery party, and my double stuff Oreo cupcakes, and my mini festive cupcakes for my church Christmas party, and my red and white heart themed cupcakes for my friend's wedding, and my new baby cupcakes for Baby Elijah and even the peanut butter bauble cupcakes - you guessed it, they were all made using this very recipe! because who doesn't love a fudgy moist cupcake!

However, you may have noticed the title of the recipe is mint filled, and in all the times I've baked them I've neglected to make mine mint filled.  Why you ask? because in England we don't get peppermint patties! but for this recipe I wanted to do it right...I was even going to buy some online from one of the American grocery websites at triple the price! but time ran away from me, so then I thought I'll make my own homemade peppermint patties as I found a great recipe but in the space of 5 days I've had 3 exams and a 3000 word essay to write so time wasn't on my side! so in the end I just bought some Tesco own brand peppermint fondants and hoped for the best!



Unfortunately the moral of this story is if you want something done right, do it the American way! When I got my cupcakes out the oven and cut into them, the peppermint fondant had full on disappeared! it had melted away completely and just left a chocolate-y goo behind! Not quite what Martha or I was going for!  so if you live in the States and have access to peppermint patties I'd definitely advise going that route!



P.S I adapted mine slightly by adding peppermint frosting because as much as I value Martha's opinion, in my book a cupcake isn't a cupcake unless it is accompanied by frosting!

Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes:
Makes 12
From Cupcakes by Martha Stewart

225g milk chocolate

1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

1 cup caster sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder

12 peppermint patties

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

Remove bowl from heat.  Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine.  Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Spoon 1 heaped tablespoon of batter into each cupcake case, place 1 peppermint patty on top, gently pressing into the batter.  Top with remaining batter until 3/4 full, covering the patty completely.

Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres (above the mint patty), comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 25-30 minutes.

Peppermint Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From Cupcakes from The Primrose Bakery

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature

60ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

1/2 tsp good quality peppermint extract

500g icing sugar

Few drops of green food colour

In a free standing mixer, beat the butter, milk, peppermint extract and half the icing sugar until smooth - this can take up to 5 mins.  

Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat again until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.  

Taste the icing at this stage to see if you want to add more peppermint extract (if you are using standard mint extract that you get in a supermarket you may need to add slightly more than half a tsp).

Add a few drops of green food colouring and beat thoroughly.  Check the colour, add more as needed.

I'm looking forward to next month when we get to bake my choice: the raspberry marble cheesecake cupcake! If you don't already own this book then what are you waiting for - it is an absolute must for any cupcake enthusiast! and if you do buy one you can start baking along with us too! 

Christmas Bauble Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I was recently lucky enough to be able to order two different long coveted baking goods from The Stateside Candy Co.  One was some Guittard mint baking chips and the other was these awesome festive mini Reese's peanut butter cups (that's right my American readers - us deprived bakers in England cannot find either of those products on our supermarket shelves!) and I felt because it was Christmas I was more than justified to buy overpriced delights like these.

I also knew I wanted to create some bauble (Christmas ornament) cupcakes and that these Reese's cups would be the perfect decorating aid for the Christmas Market Stall these cupcakes made their debut at.

These were my favourite of the whole day.  The brownie and peanut butter combo is pretty unbeatable, but I also loved the fun decoration too.  They were rather time consuming, especially when I started off making the zig zag patterns out of individual jimmies.  I realised it was going to be an even longer night than expected if I carried on like that so I moved on to making a fairly easy row of sprinkles and sugar pearls in the middle of the bauble with some zig zag patterns being more easily formed by melted chocolate either side of them.

Brownie Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular and 24 mini's

From: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

450g milk chocolate

1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 cups caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

6 large eggs

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup sifted cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  

Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

Remove bowl from heat.  Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine.  Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Fill cupcake cases until 3/4 full.  Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres, comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached about 25-30 minutes (and 12-15 minutes for the mini's).

Peanut Butter Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From: Sweet Tooth

4 cups icing Sugar

1/2 cup semi-skimmed milk

1/2 cup unsalted organic unsalted butter

1 cup smooth organic peanut butter

2 tsp vanilla

Blend together the sugar, milk, butter and peanut butter until smooth.  If you require a thicker consistency add more sugar, if you need it to be thinner add more milk. 

To Assemble:

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop up a level scoop of frosting and put it on top of the cupcake.

I used the back of a teaspoon to help smooth it out so that it covered the whole surface of the cake.  I tried to make sure I maintained a 'domed' shape with the mound of frosting.

Place a mini Reese's peanut butter cup at the top of the frosting.

Use sprinkles to create bauble type patterns on the frosting.

Melt some chocolate to pipe on zig zag patterns.

Brownie cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Frosting to welcome Baby Elijah!

There's nothing that says 'Welcome to the world Baby' than a batch of cupcakes...in my opinion! so when we heard some of our new friends from church had welcomed a new arrival I got into the kitchen to do some baking.

I made my favourite brownie cupcakes because the parents of the new baby had enjoyed them a few weeks before, so I figured they would enjoy them even more second time round.  Plus the first time I had made them I was still getting to grips with our new oven and to my taste they were slightly burnt, no-one else seemed to mind, so this time I ensured they were baked to perfection.

Around a year ago I ordered a whole load of chocolate moulds from an American seller on eBay.  They were practically giving them away they were so cheap...so although at the time I didn't know any pregnant people I knew they would come in handy! I also bought tons of Christmas moulds that I'm excited to getting around to use this year! So the moulds I used had baby bottles, rattles...

little sleeping bubbas...

and even praying toddlers! how cute is that! I thought it was apt since they were for friends from church! 

I also wanted to personalise them a little so I got out the good old fondant, tinted it blue and really wanted to make perfectly round discs to sit on top of my cupcakes.  I looked around my worktop to see what I could use and I saw my collection of piping nozzles.  I used my biggest one and pressed the underneath of it into the fondant and it created the perfect sized circle! 

I then used my letter stencils to spell out 'Baby Elijah' and after leaving them to air dry I placed them on top of the frosted cupcakes along with a few blue heart sprinkles for good measure! 

I was pleased with how they turned out, as were Elijah's parents but the verdict is still out on what Elijah thought himself! 

Brownie Cupcakes:

Makes 36 Mini's

Taken from Martha Stewart's 'Cupcakes' Book

225g/8oz milk chocolate

113g/ 1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

225g/1 cup caster sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

62g/ 1/2 cup plain flour

31g/ 1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F.  

Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

 Remove bowl from heat.  Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine.  Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Fill cupcake cases until 3/4 full.  Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres, comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 15-18mins (If you are baking regular sized cupcakes, bake for 25 mins).

Vanilla Bean Frosting:

Makes enough to frost 36 Mini's...plus some leftover for quality control :)

Taken from Cupcake Project

250g/2 cups icing sugar

225g/1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste 

1 tablespoon milk

Mix together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy.  Add vanilla bean paste and milk and continue to beat for another minute.  If desired, add more vanilla bean paste to taste, or more icing sugar to make a stiffer consistency.

Red Velvet & Brownie Wedding Cupcakes...for a very special wedding!

 

Shall I tell you every bakers worst nightmare, or let me rephrase that...every English bakers worst nightmare - 1. Red Velvets, 2. Red frosting!!

Guess what Laura wanted me to make for her wedding, red velvet cupcakes and brownie cupcakes with the dreaded red frosting!!! Already I was foreseeing stressful times ahead! 

Let me explain why...baking up a red velvet if you live in America is easy peasy (and why you find them at every cupcakery/bakery from California to New York) because they just pop down to Wal Mart or wherever and pick up a bottle of red food colouring and follow their perfect little recipe.  Job done.

In England it's not so easy! because some 'clever' (a.k.a stupid) person has decided artificial red food colouring can no longer be sold on our shelves and that everything needs to be natural.

So this is what happens when you bake a red velvet with natural food colour. 

 

You get a red velvet that comes out brown!!!  I tried four different kinds of red velvet recipes.  I tried liquid red colour, gel red colour and either the colour didn't work or it worked so well that the mixture became inedible. 

Do you know what saved the day in the end and produced this beautiful red hue you see below?

 

A bottle of cochineal, that I had bought at the supermarket like 2 years ago when I remember reading on a blog that it was good for making red frosting! Unfortunately that little bottle wasn't quite enough to make ALL the red velvets I needed too so I popped to Sainsburys...and then to Tesco...and then to Asda and apparently cochineal is too artificial these days too so they no longer sell that either!!!

Luckily I had a small bottle of red food colour that my fantastic sister had brought back for me from the States so I managed to finish my baking using that....but it was no mean feat baking up 75 red velvets and a giant cupcake too - I needed the help of ALL the red food colours in the picture below! and some were no help at all like stupid silver spoon food colouring with no artificial colours! psh!

The bride had requested red glitter and red m&m's so I made a special trip to m&m world to buy a giant bag of only red and white m&m's!

 

and of course there had to be lots of red hearts involved on top of the cream cheese frosting.

 

My red frosting actually turned out surprisingly great! thanks to my new favourite sugarflair colour - RED EXTRA! where have you been hiding all my life! when I have had red frosting baking fail after fail after fail..this little guy would have come in handy! but I've found it now and I'm passing on my little secret to all of you! 

 

Some of the cupcakes got decorated with a few jimmies...

 

and there were also 75 minis just to add to the fun!

 

They got topped the same way as the regular sized cupcakes but I managed to get mini versions of the heart sprinkles and the m&m's just got chopped up smaller!

 

The brownie cupcakes were specially requested by the bride after she tried them here and here and fell in love with them! If you want to bake them yourself then go ahead and follow Martha's recipe, they're super fudgy and yummy! 

 

The red frosting I whipped up was my fave flavour - vanilla bean.

 

I also made a giant cupcake for the occasion too.

 

Here are a few pics of the cupcakes that I managed to snap just after I set them all up at the wedding.

 

I liked the way it was a whole table filled with cupcakes dotted all over the place rather than the more traditional cupcake towers.

 

I'm really loving my new lens these days! Although Byron uses it much better than I do, so credit to him for taking all these!

 

The prettiness of this table summed up the whole of Mr & Mrs Brooker's amazing day!

 

I even managed to co-ordinate with the cupcakes without even planning it! 

 

and here I am with the beautiful bride! After all the red related headaches, I was happy they turned out great in the end! and it was so fun to be able to make these cupcakes for Laur's special day! 

I'm sharing these over at Hoosier Homemade for Cupcake Tuesday! Go check out all the other delicious cupcakes everyone has been baking up!

Lola's Chocolate Sundae Brownie Cupcake & an awesome husband!

When Lola's announced that their cupcake special for the month of August was the Chocolate Sundae I knew I had to get to Selfridge's as fast as I could! infact I ventured there on the 3rd August but life has been so busy I've only just had a minute to blog about it now!! You see chocolate brownie cupcakes are just about one of my favourite cupcake flavours and when you pair it with vanilla pod buttercream - that to me is near perfection! and is actually one of my signature cupcake combos! 

Apparently 'Sundaes' were invented to overcome the law against ice cream consumption on Sunday's in the 1800s...how crazy is that! As you may recall, before we left for the Caribbean we had started up a little family tradition of 'Sundae Sunday' where we made different flavoured Sundae's each week.  That weekly event is on hold for now but rest assured in less than a months time when we move to Bangor and have our own happy little home again it will definitely be in full swing!

 

So back to the cupcake! this was hands down one of the best Lola's specials I've had in a while.  The brownie cupcake itself was the perfect combo of a moist fudgy centre (as showcased in the photo above) with a crunchy outer layer.  The vanilla pod frosting was delish and it was finished off with chocolate sauce, nuts and cherries.  I'm not a glace cherry lover, I've never met many people who are but I understand the association with Sundae's so I get why they used it, however mine stayed on my plate.

It was a fun little cupcake pit stop I made at Selfridge's...made even more fun by some accompanying Kings of Leon tunes on my cupcake covered iPod!! Here's where the awesome husband part of this post comes in.  A few weeks ago, I found myself at Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road.  They always have a rather large sale section and there were tons of various cupcake items on offer! I spotted, and fell in love with this iPod cover so I snapped it up instantly! I had left my iPod back in Milton Keynes that particular week so the following weekend when I went back I pulled the cover out of my bag and excitedly showed it to Byron.  He instantly dismissed it as he told me my iPod was too old and would not be compatible with the cover!! I was sooo disappointed! So the following weekend my awesome husband came to London to spend the weekend with me and he told me he was bringing a surprise...and what do you know he brought me a brand new iPod and not just any iPod this was a purple iPod!! and of course it meant it could fit my lovely new cupcake cover too!

so I thought I would share a little picture of it with all you cupcake lovers out there too...isn't it cute, and isn't my husband just the best for not only putting up with my cupcake obsession but feeding into it as well!

Cupcakes and the concrete jungle where dreams are made of!

First things first, apologies for the lack of posting recently.  Rest assured, this was not due to a lack in baking...oh no the baking has continued, but there was a lack of internet which was more than a little frustrating! How did we ever live without it, hey?! but I'm back online and have lots of goodies to post for you.

Starting with these...they may look like Valentine's cupcakes but actually it's just a co-incidence with the timing.  I got an email this week from one of my best friends back home in England.  A few months ago her boyfriend proposed to her in the middle of Central Park on a carriage ride in New York City!! Pretty awesome, right? So now they are planning a fun and fantastic wedding for September and what would she like me to contribute? cupcakes of course! There is no greater joy than baking for me...but baking for such a special event - well that makes me super excited! 

So she told me her colour scheme is white and red, and that I absolutely had to make my Martha Stewart Brownie Cupcakes because she has never eaten a tastier cupcake! My baking supplies over here in TCI are limited.  Whilst they have a good range of baking ingredients here on Island (because most of them are American) they are severely lacking in the decorating part.  

So I made do with the decorations I brought over in my suitcase, yes I sat and picked my way through a jar of patriotic sprinkles sorting all the red and white ones but you do what you have to do! 

and this is what I threw together this afternoon, just for fun and as a little sampler for my friend to see and decide if I am on the right track for what she was hoping for! 

In the meantime, for those of you not planning September red and white themed weddings, they are perfect for a little Valentine's inspiration! 

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes...in all kinds of festive ways!

So I'm officially all cupcaked out for the week! My fridge can't currently keep up with the amount of baking we're doing at the moment so I have a back log of goodies...which is never a bad thing!

On Friday night and yesterday morning Mara and I baked over 150 mini cupcakes! 24 were for a holiday gift sale in a local gallery to lure in potential customers! and the rest were for our church Christmas party in the evening.

We made half with my amazing Martha Stewart Brownie Cupcake recipe topped with peppermint buttercream from the Primrose Bakery, and half were the gingerbread cupcakes topped with gingerbread cookies after the ones we made the other day were such a success...but I didn't bother taking pictures of those since you saw them in the last post!

The cupcakes for the holiday sale got a sprinkling of red sanding sugar and broken up candy canes:

After that we did some flat frosting, and covered those in green and red sanding sugar...

and then we couldn't resist adding a tasty little festive mint m&m to finish them off:

We piped these with a cute star nozzle:

and topped some with festive sprinkles...

and the rest with peppermint oreo crumb...yummy!

If you want to make your own delicious festive cupcakes here is the recipe we used:

For the cupcakes:

(Makes approx 30 mini cupcakes)

1 1/2 cups plain chocolate

1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

1 cup caster sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit).  Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

2. Remove bowl from heat.  Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine.  Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

3. Fill cupcake cases until 3/4 full.  Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres, comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 15-20 mins (for mini cupcakes, 25-30mins for regular size cupcakes)

For the frosting:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

60ml semi-skimmed milk

1/2 teaspoon good quality peppermint extract

4 cups icing sugar, sifted

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, milk, peppermint extract and half the icing sugar until smooth. 2. Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat again until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.

3. Taste the icing at this stage to see if you want to add any more peppermint

4. Pipe on and decorate!

Oreo Brownie Cupcakes...double stuff stylie!

I had a craving for Oreo cupcakes this weekend.  Byron had a craving for brownies - so what did we do? combine the two! I made my favourite Martha Stewart Brownie cupcakes and added some crushed Oreo into the mix....

...then I lined each cupcake case with half an Oreo cookie, this is one of my favourite tricks.  This time I made it even better by using a Double Stuff cookie half and oh wow it made such a difference! Double the yumminess for sure!

Then I spooned the cupcake mix into the cases, nearly right to the top (as brownies don't really rise all that much)...

...and this is how they looked when they came out the oven.

I made another Caribbean baking error though.  I took my cream cheese and butter for the frosting out of the fridge well ahead of time, thinking I was still back in England!, so of course by the time I got around to making the frosting they were both completely melted! So my frosting wasn't thick enough to form nice frosting peaks, I just slapped it on with a knife but it still tasted great.

I thought I'd show off a little more of the beautiful scenery I am surrounded with here in Turks and Caicos, so that's the canal our house backs on to in the background of the pic! Enjoy!