I was first introduced to a type of Nutella, that delightful
spread made from hazelnuts and cocoa when I was a small child, living in
Caracas, Venezuela. There it is called
Nucita since the Spanish word for nuts is nueces and it isn’t actually made by the
Nutella company but by a Venezuelan enterprise. Unfortunately, after one year there, my
parents divorced and I moved back to the United States with my mother and two
sisters. So the hazelnut paste romance
was short-lived. According to the Nutella
website, the real deal didn’t arrive in the US until 1984, and then, only in
the northeastern states. (As for my old
friend, Nucita, I’ve never seen it in the States, although it’s possible that
some stores in Florida might carry it, since there is a large population of
Venezuelans living there.) As I grew
older, I would run across Nutella occasionally while overseas but as my preferred
tastes changed from sweet to savory, I never regained the lost love. My daughters are a different matter. I have been buying Nutella for them since
they were young and they like to eat it with a spoon. Never mind the original toast it was meant to be eaten on. Last year, for World Nutella Day, I sent them each two jars through Amazon.com. Because some holidays are well worth celebrating. Put it on your calendar now, folks!
Before writing this post I did a little research about this much loved spread
and discovered that the original recipe was created by pastry maker Pietro
Ferrero using hazelnuts because chocolate was in such short supply due to
World War II rationing. Hazelnuts, on
the other hand, were plentiful in his native land, the Piedmont region of
northern Italy. I must confess that I
was probably in my twenties before I figured out that Nutella wasn’t made from
just chocolate, despite its name. Call me slow but I just never thought about it. [bows head in shame]
Anyway, back to Muffin Monday where we are making
Nutella-filled and Nutella-topped Muffins!
You can find the original recipe here, which called only for Nutella
topping but you know I am always looking for ways to raise the bar.
Ingredients
3/4 cup or 170g sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups + 2 teaspoons or 190g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking power
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup or 60ml vegetable oil
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
About 1/3 cup or 100g Nutella for filling
About 1/3 cup or 100g Nutella for topping
Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Grease a muffin tin with cooking spray or line
it with baking cups.
Measure your first 1/3 cup or 100g of Nutella into a small
bowl and place it in the ice tray of your freezer. We just want it to stiffen up a little
bit. If you live in a cold climate, this
step may not be necessary but here in Egypt in the summer, my Nutella is pretty
runny.
In a large bowl, mix all of your dry ingredients together:
sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.
In another smaller bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients:
egg, oil, milk and vanilla extract.
Add the wet stuff to the dry ingredients and mix until just
combined.
Fill each muffin cup about two tablespoons of batter. I use a cookie dough scoop for this because it
is more accurate and so easy. Also, it
reminds me of the friend that bought it for me here.
Divide your Nutella from the freezer between the muffin cups
and then top with the remainder of the batter.
 |
| See, nice and firm, so it doesn't run all over the batter. |
Add a dollop of the other 1/3 cup or 100g of Nutella to each
muffin cup and swirl it around a few times in the batter with a toothpick or a pointy knife. I always have a supply of satay sticks on hand so I used one of those. If you are in a cold climate, you can give it quick zap in the microwave to get it moving. Definitely not my problem here.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. You can't poke these with a toothpick to see if they are done because you just end up with a toothpick full of Nutella so look for light golden brown around the edges.
Remove the muffins from the muffin tin and let them cool a
little bit on a wire rack before serving.
These go great with a glass of
ice cold milk.
Enjoy!
Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A
culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop
in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat
glum Monday mornings week after week.
Need more muffin recipes?
A double scoop of Nutella? You are my hero! These muffins look delicious with that fudgy center. Happy #MuffinMonday!
ReplyDeleteOver the top is often my motto! Happy #MuffinMonday to you too! Muffins really do make Mondays better. The addition of muffins improves most days in fact.
ReplyDeleteWow! I just want to kiss you right now. Those sound amazing! You had me at the title "double Nutella." Great job!
ReplyDeleteDouble nutella is the way to go, Stacy! These look incredible! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kate, but I have to thank Anuradha for the title! I had called them something silly like Nutella-filled Swirl Muffins and when I saw her post with our links, she had changed it to double, which was so much neater and cleaner and OBVIOUS. So I changed mine to match. What can I say? I think my mind was still on beach time. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anuradha. And as I said to Kate below, thank you for the new post title! Double Nutella is indeed the way to go. :)
ReplyDeleteAlthough it was the Nutella that made me crave these, I went to bake them and realized I was out of Nutella, and I was too lazy to get dressed and run to the store. I used chocolate doce de leite instead. Maybe you remember this from your time in Brazil? It's a much runnier spread that they eat on bread and also use as a fruit dip. The muffins didn't turn out as planned since the muffin mix absorbed most of it, but they were delicious none the less! Thanks for helping me find a use for the jar of doce de leite that I have had sitting around forever because I don't really care for it on bread or with fruit. And to think I was going to throw it away yesterday!
ReplyDeleteWe love doce de leite! I am sure the muffins were delicious and I am so glad you didn't throw it away. Have you tried it over vanilla ice cream? You can even warm it first like hot fudge. Or use it to sweeten hot cocoa made with cocoa powder and milk.
ReplyDeleteHave you come across brigadeiros yet? My girls loved them. Little caramely candies covered in chocolate sprinkles. You used to be able to buy the stuff in a can, like the doce de leite. My younger daughter who is at home with me now was just saying last night, "We need to make brigadeiros!" It's been a while. :)
I found a photo for you online. Not a good one, but you get the idea of what to look for. The chocolate sprinkles are in the baking section of the grocery stores usually. They call them chocolate granulado.
I love brigadeiros - athough I never knew what they were called until you wrote this and I did a google image search :) I need to make something for a bake sale this week. Maybe I'll give them a shot.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to try the docs de leite on ice cream in in hot chocolate. It sounds delicious! Thanks for the tips and for the picture of the chocolate sprinkles. The grocery store here in Brazil still intimidates me!
Grocery stores are scary when you don't understand the labels and what folks are saying to you! Your new pharmacy story cracked me up, but I also felt your pain. You REALLY need to learn some Portuguese. Really. You will get so much more out of this experience if you do. After this many years and learning so many languages (most of them badly) I can tell you that people are encouraging and hardly ever laugh at you. I arrived in Brazil speaking Spanish and continued mixing Portuguese and Spanish liberally, till I learned more Portuguese words. I once stopped a room full of people flat by telling them I had to go because "tenho que pegar a mi menina." or I have to get my daughter, because the Spanish word pegar means get. In Portuguese it means hit. I could tell by their stunned faces that I had gone wrong somewhere. It's part of the learning curve! But that's what makes it exciting. Jump off! Start speaking! You will be fine and nobody ever died of embarrassment. :)
ReplyDelete