Chocolate and hazelnut cupcakes

So, last tuesday a delivery van pulled up outside our house. 'Are you expecting anything Helen?!' shouted my Dad. Errr...no I replied. Yet it was a mystery package for me. I was quite perplexed. What had I ordered off Amazon?! It was the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook! I had it on pre-order yet it isn't due out until the 13th March, so I was still confused as to why I got it 3 weeks early. Oh well, I wasn't complaining.

I started to look through it, there were so many recipes I wanted to try! I've never visited the Hummingbird Bakery, but I so want to. The north of England is deprived of cute bakeries like that, although we do have Betty's in Yorkshire which is amazing. Cupcakes are only just catching on in England, maybe they will slowly spread northwards. (It is actually my not-so-secret life ambition to open my own bakery in Liverpool one day...maybe)

Anyway, back to the cakes! The most important thing! They were so delicious. I love Nutella, incase you all didn't know. These cupcakes have a dollop of nutella in the middle which really made them for me. The cake was also delicious and soft.

These photos are also an opportunity for me to show off my amazingly beautiful tea set that my Mum bought me the other day. It was only £2.50! It has 4 cups, 6 saucers, 6 side plates and 1 serving plate. I'm guessing 2 cups went missing/got smashed, which is sad, but still, you can't complain for £2.50! Plus it was from the Cancer Research shop so it's all for a good cause. It makes me want to have a tea party. Anyway, onwards to the recipe!

Ingredients

100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
40g butter, at room temp.
120ml milk (the recipe said whole milk, but I just used semi and they turned out okay!)
1 egg
120g nutella
chopped hazelnuts to decorate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/170c/325f

2. Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl and mix together. You can use an electric hand whisk for this. It should be a slightly sandy/grainy texture

3. Pour the milk into the mixture and mix. Then add the egg and beat until it's all incorporated.

4. Spoon the mixture into cupcakes cases in a muffin tin, filling to about halfway or 2/3 full. They rise quite a bit. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

5. Leave to cool completely, then cut out a little circle in the cupcake. Pop the loose piece of cake out, insert a dollop of nutella, then put the cake piece back ontop so you have a filled cupcake.

For the icing

250g icing sugar
80g butter, at room temp
25 ml milk
80g nutella

Mix all the above ingredients together until incorporated and continue mixing for about 5 minutes. The more mixing, the fluffier the icing! Use a palette knife to ice the cupcakes, then sprinkle with a bit of chopped hazelnut. Enjoy! (I did, as you can see!)