Nutella: Round 2

My hubby is transitioning jobs this weekend and requested some cupcakes to give to some of his co-workers as parting gifts. His boss is a Nutella fan, so I revamped a recipe that I had tried before.

The first time I made Nutella cupcakes I used a recipe for a Nutella cake and a Nutella frosting from an online source I can no longer find. The frosting was good. The cake was dry. I filled the cupcakes with chocolate ganache, drizzled the frosted cakes with the ganache as well and topped them with toasted hazelnuts. The cupcakes looked and tasted great. They also got rave reviews from my family. I didn't think they had enough Nutella flavor (and also the cake turned out dry), so I knew I would do something different the next time. Here's my first batch. Forgive the bad picture.

This time I decided to use the chocolate cake recipe from BHG I have been raving about. I also decided to fill the cupcakes with straight up Nutella.

I used a new Nutella frosting recipe from My Baking Addiction as I can't find the first one I used and topped the cakes with either toasted hazelnuts or a hazelnut chocolate chunk.

The first frosting recipe I used was a lot smoother than this recipe, but I like the flavor of this one better. They are both very decadent. It's Nutella. What da ya expect?

Oh, and the cupcakes were a hit with Matthew's co-workers. They're a hit with me too.