Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcake

We have an abundance of Nutella in the house :) We had a large jar (almost empty) and two unopened medium-sized jars. So, I was searching for recipes that would make use of Nutella.

I found two which I felt was quite easy to follow. This is one of them. The other is the No Knead Nutella and Roasted Hazelnut Challah, which I hope to make soon.

Self Frosting Nutella Cupcake
from Pinoy Cook



140g butter, softened to room temperature (about 1 1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
9-12 (depends on how many muffins per pan) heaping tsps of Nutella, at room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 325F.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. Place sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl. With a wire whisk or mixer, beat butter and sugar together. Beat until mixture is light and creamy.

4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

5. Add flour mixture and mix until batter is smooth (hardly pourable).

6. Line muffin pan with paper cups.

7. Use an ice cream scoop to fill pans until 3/4 full.

8. Top with a heaping teaspoon of Nutella. Take a toothpick, dip into unbaked cupcake until tip hits bottom of pan. Swirl Nutella with batter so that some batter comes on top of Nutella.

9. Bake in a preheated 325F oven for exactly 20 minutes.

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It was a very straight-forward recipe which you can easily follow and it yields yummy cupcakes :) If you want it a bit more moist, perhaps you can add in some more butter or mix in some oil.

45 Minute Cinnamon Rolls

First off, I wasn't able to take note of the time so I don't know how much time it took me to bake the rolls ;-)


45 Minute Cinnamon Rolls
from Real Mom Kitchen

1 1/8 cups warm water

1/3 cup oil

2 tbsp yeast

1/4 cup sugar or honey

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

3 1/2 cups flour

Filling:

1/4 cup butter, softened

cinnamon

sugar

Icing:

2 1/4 cup powdered sugar

3 tbsp butter, melted

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

milk (I didn't put in milk when I made the icing)

1. Mix first 4 ingredients and let rest for 15 minutes. (If you will use instant dry yeast like me, I just added the yeast to the flour and instead of mixing the first 4 ingredients, I just mixed water and oil first). Add salt, sugar and egg. Gradually add flour.

2. Roll out into a 9x13 rectangle on a well floured surface.

3. Spread butter on dough. Sprinkle dough generously with cinnamon. Follow with sprinkling sugar over the cinnamon. This is also a generous amount. Enough to completely cover the cinnamon so you can't see it.

4. Roll up from the long side to make a log. Cut into 12 slices and place on a greased cookie sheet.

5. After shaping, let rest for 10 minutes.

6. Bake 10-15 minutes at 400F until golden brown. Remove from oven and mix up the icing. Let the rolls cool a little before putting on the icing.

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I guess I'm too scared of flour. So I ended up not using the whole 3 1/2 cups - I think I had about half a cup left. I was mixing the dough and it felt tacky enough so I stopped adding flour. Bad decision. Because when I started to roll the dough to make a log - I couldn't make a log! The dough was too soft so it couldn't keep the log shape :(

See that? I had a cinnamon roll, a cinnamon croissant, a cinnamon arbitrary-shape. hahaha!

Oh, and with the cinnamon and sugar, I scrimped. Big time! So I had a not-too-sweet roll. But it's cool that the icing was able to make up for the sweetness. I guess, my decision to scrimp was not that bad because if I didn't do it, the roll would've been too sweet for our taste :)

This is the reason why I chose that saying located at the upper right side of my blog - WHEN BAKING, FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. :)

Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken Wings with Oven-Fried Potato Chips

As promised, I'm now posting the recipes I prepared the past week. But where to start? I guess I'll just write it down in the order I prepared them. So that makes the first one...

Baked Parmesan Garlic Chicken Wings

from the Steamy Kitchen

2 1/2 lbs (~1kg) chicken wings, separate at the joint

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried rosemary

1/2 tsp ground cumin (I used chili powder as a substitute)

1 tsp kosher or sea salt (or 1/2 tsp table salt)

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or melted butter)

2 tbsp minced fresh basil

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp seasoning salt (I have no idea where to get this, so I just used our salt at home)

1 cup blue cheese dressing (I prepared ranch dressing, recipe of which I will also post)

1-2 tsp Dijon mustard

1. Preheat oven to 425F. In a small bowl, mix together oregano, rosemary, cumin (or chili powder) and salt. Lay chicken wings on a baking sheet and season the wings with the mixture.

2. Bake the chicken wings for 20-25 minutes (it took us about 35mins to cook the chicken probably something to do with our oven temp - note to self: buy an oven thermometer). While chicken is baking, mix together oil, fresh basil, garlic, parmesan cheese and seasoning salt.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together blue cheese dressing with mustard. (Again, I didn't have blue cheese so I looked for an alternative and the nearest one is ranch dressing - which I prepared from scratch).

4. When chicken is cooked through, toss the wings with garlic/cheese/butter sauce. Serve with dressing.

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Ranch Dressing

from allrecipes.com

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream (I used buttermilk - prepare 1 cup of buttermilk by placing 1 tbsp of lemon juice on a liquid measuring cup then add enough milk to make 1 cup)

1/2 tsp dried chives (I replaced with 1 tsp fresh spring onions)

1/2 tsp dried parsley (I replaced with 1 tsp fresh flat parsley or even celery can be used)

1/2 tsp dried dill weed (this one I found a substitute through Google - 1/4 tsp dried rosemary, crushed + 1/4 tsp paprika)

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

Just place everything in a blender and adjust according to taste. I had to add some salt and pepper because I found the initial mixture too sweet (probably because of the mayonnaise I used).

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Oven-Fried Potato Chips

from the Pinoy Cook

large potatoes (the quantity depends on you)

olive oil

salt

pepper

herbs (I used Carmencita Sensations Provence herb mix - sea salt, tomato, thyme, oregano, garlic, sage, marjoram, basil and rosemary)

The herb mix above was purchased from Shopwise and is recommended for use with chicken. There is, supposedly, another herb mix (called Toscana) which is recommended for pasta. I only had the Provence one however, so I tried it out. It worked for us naman :)

1. Scrub the potatoes clean, making sure to remove any particles such as soil.

2. Slice the potatoes thinly, about 1/8" with skin on.

3. Brush both sides with olive oil then arrange on a single layer on a baking sheet.

4. Sprinkle with herbs, salt and pepper.

5. Bake in a pre-heated 90C (194F or thereabouts hehe) oven until browned.

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So there you have it. That was Monday night dinner for us. We had some more left, enough for our baon the next day.

The chicken wings were good...as in yum yum good :) and the potatoes were the perfect partner. Definitely cheaper than going to Shakey's to order their chicken and mojos combo :)