fueled by nutella

Most people that know me, also know I have a mild obsession with ferrero rocher. When I stumbled on this while looking for cupcake inspiration, I knew I had to make them.
Enter the British Joey Yung, her awesome KitchenAid, and her love for all things in cupcake form.

We borrowed the recipe from HowToEatACupcake who based her recipe from from Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman, with a few modifications, it was ferrero cupcake success!

Ferrero Rocher Mini Cupcakes
Makes 48 minis

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup Nutella
1/4 cup milk

Ganache
8 oz. semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips (or both)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup chopped, toasted hazelnuts
Nutella for texture and flavouring

Assembly
24 Hazelnut wafer thins
24 Whole Toasted Hazelnuts
Nutella

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add 3/4 cup of Nutella and blend thoroughly. Alternately add flour mixture and milk, blending well after each addition
4. Using a tablespoon, fill each cup with batter. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
5. When cupcakes are cool, fill them with the remaining Nutella.
6. Make the ganache. Put chocolate chips and cream in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 45 seconds to 1 minute, depending on your microwave. Stir gently with a rubber spatula. Heat for 15-20 more seconds. Stir until well blended. Let sit about 30 minutes, or until ganache is spreadable. Add in Nutella as desired for taste and texture. Stir in chopped hazelnuts and spread on cupcakes.

The Ingredients

The KitchenAid is both a timesaver and a lifesaver!

For the Ganache, make sure to chop and toast the hazelnuts. The wafers were disassembled to mimic the wafer housing the center of the ferrero rocher. Every wafer broken during disassembly was consumed by yours truly... not the best way to stay on diet :S

Rising up nicely in the oven.

Once the cupcakes were cooled, I used a Wilton cake decorating tip 12 to poke a hole, filled partially with nutella, placed a whole toasted hazelnut in the hole, and filled the top with nutella.

The disassembled hazelnuts were placed on top. Once we started icing, we realized the wafers had to be broken to the size of the cupcake.

The finished product... delicious!


From start to finish this project took about 2 hours and produced 48 delicious mini cupcakes. After coming off our sugar high, British JY and I distributed the goodies to the delighted concierge, and others in need of a ferrero kick.