WOW, I have a lot of catching up to do. It’s been a surprisingly busy week with shockingly good outcomes!

Nutella Cupcakes

The first thing that I made was Nutella Cupcakes. I used Martha Stewart’s One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, but ran out of cocao and had to do some improvisations. It turned out shockingly well and they were by far the best chocolate cupcakes I’ve made. The Nutella Buttercream was adapted from mybakingaddiction.com. At first, I loved the flavour, but after letting them sit over night I realized that I should have put more Nutella in the mix. (I spent the better half of baking inhaling spoonfuls of Nutella so by the time I went to taste the icing my tastebuds were completely off ). I garnished the cupcakes with a chocolate covered banana slice since Nutella is awesome with bananas. Although completely unnecessary, they were a cute added touch and I thought that they tasted delicious.

Here’s the recipe with my changes:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 large whole eggs, plus 1 large egg yolk 

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups warm water

2oz semi-sweet chocolate

 

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two standard 12-cup muffin pans with paper liners. Into the bowl of an electric mixer, sift together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Attach bowl to mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add eggs and yolk, the milk, oil, vanilla, the melted semi-sweet chocolate, and warm water. Beat on low speed until smooth and combined, about 3 minutes; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. [Don't be concerned if your batter seems too watery, the cupcakes turn out fine!]

 

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the centre of a cupcake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool slightly. Invert cupcakes onto the rack, then reinvent and let them cool completely, top sides up. 

 

Pineapple Upside-Down Cupcakes

The second thing that I made was Pineapple Upside-Down Cupcakes. My friend Maria and I are going to Hawaii and it was her birthday so she asked me to bake her a pineapple upside-down cake. Since I’ve been on a bit of a cupcake kick, I decided to make them mini. When I searched for some recipes online I realized I had been missing out on a HUGE phenomenon! I picked a recipe that looked super yummy, but since I’ve never eaten a cake like this before I really didn’t know what to expect.

Damn.

When I bit into the cake right out of the oven I was blown away. Why haven’t I eaten this type of cake before? Now I’m even more excited to go to Hawaii because not only am I going to go buck-wild on the cake, but we’re also planning on visiting the Dole Pineapple Farm (which has a really cool maze..). Fun Fact: The fad of pineapple upside-down cakes only began after 1901 when Jim Dole started preserving sliced pineapples. Yum.

We ate the cupcakes later in the evening with vanilla ice cream. The best part was that my friend approved of them . My day = Successful!

The recipe that I used was from cookbookmaniac.com.  Even though it calls for fresh pineapples, I used canned ones. I can only imagine how much better they would be fresh! I highly encourage that you try this recipe out, but if you’re not in the mood to bake I have a TON of extra batter in the fridge so just let me know and I’ll make them for you too!