Weekend Baking – Nutella Muffins

Anyone that knows me understands how deep my love for Nutella is.  It is by far, my most favorite (how’s that for proper English?!) chocolate EVER.  You see, I’ve been eating Nutella since I was a very little girl.  Before they stocked it at the neighborhood grocery store and way before 1 million recipes including it started popping up on Pinterest. 

My mom is from Italy, so my Nonna and Nonno used to give this to me a few times a year.  They only came into contact with it on rare occasion of finding it at the Italian specialty store (remember, this is when I was little so there weren’t these types of stores everywhere).  When they would give it to me, I would literally hide it under my bed from my half-sister and half-brother (I never had an eating disorder – I swear!).  I hid it because I eat Nutella from a spoon and because I more than quadruple dip, so I don’t share (I have a very weird germ thing and won’t share glasses or silverware.  I said I never had an eating disorder, I didn’t say I wasn’t slightly OCD…).  So why am I telling you all this?!  Because I LOVE NUTELLA!!!

So in comes Pinterest.  All these recipes are popping up involving Nutella and I just couldn’t go another minute without making one!  So thanks to Pinterst, I made Nutella Muffins and they not only were very easy, but they’re delicious!  Here’s the recipe (also found on blogs.babble.com):

Nutella Muffins (makes 1 dozen muffins)

¼ cup butter, at room temperature
¼ cup canola or mild vegetable oil
¾ cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ - ½ cup Nutella, at room temperature

**I just scooped right out of the Nutella jar.  It’s too thick to place in another container and I would never risk losing any of it by being stuck to a bowl J

Preheat the oven to 325F

1. In a medium bowl, beat the butter, oil and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.

2.  In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt; add to the butter mixture and beat on low speed just until combined. The batter will be thick. It needs to be in order to swirl in the Nutella!

3.  Divide the batter between 12 paper-lined muffin cups. Drop a spoonful of Nutella on top of each, and swirl through the batter with the tip of a bamboo skewer, knife or other pointy object.

4.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until springy to the touch**Mine took the full 30 minutes

5.  Tilt them in the pan to help them cool**They taste best WARM!!'

Here is a photo of the finished product (please ignore the disposable muffin tin – I only own mini muffin pans!)

With love,

Nutella Freak