Nutella Cupcakes

I've mentioned before that I'm not a chocolate person. However, I'm clearly in the minority and Monkey's mom absolutely adores chocolate. Her birthday falls near Mother's Day, so I always make sure she gets lots of yummy treats to munch on. This year, I opted for as chocolate as I could get. Part of this was to ensure that I didn't stuff my face with the cupcakes, since sweets have been a staple in my diet lately.



When I made Monkey his birthday cupcakes, I really fell in love with the Kahlua cake recipe. It represented the perfect chocolate cupcake for me- perfectly moist, chocolatey, but the little bit of coffee really gives it an extra kick that makes it ultra delicious. I don't ever use the instant espresso because, well, we don't have it! Instead I substitute in a half cup of coffee from our Keurig (whatever flavor I'm not feeling or we have excess of- in this case, decaf!).

For the frosting, I wanted to try a new recipe. I wound up going into our pantry to stare at our extract shelf because I just couldn't decide of a good pairing. I wound up spotting the two jumbo sized containers of Nutella and knew it was going to be awesome. My family doesn't do anything by halves, including groceries. Almost everything in our pantry is from Sam's or Costco, so I didn't feel guilty about using up lots of Nutella (especially because I'm the only one who eats it!).I used this recipe for the frosting and filled the cupcakes with Nutella as well. I probably should have used a bigger tip because I don't think there was that much filling in them. I wound up using two thirds or so of the big jar, so I have pleeeenty for later.



Remember how I mentioned that I was "saving" myself from the sweets by making chocolate? Well, that didn't work. After trying a cupcake, I had to have Monkey take them away otherwise I would have eaten each and every one before they could have made it to his mom.

Yum yum yum!