Nutella Muffin Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 15 minutes plus 10 minutes freezing time concurrently
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients Needed
- 336g/11.8ozs Nutella
- 330g/11.6ozs cake flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 270g/9.5ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 150ml/5.3 flozs oil (neutral like canola or grapeseed)
- 400g/14ozs natural Greek yogurt (or sour cream or buttermilk)
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 60g/2ozs Nutella for top swirl
- 1 tablespoon/15g/0.5oz white sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Cake flour can be bought at the supermarket. You can also make it at home. To make 1 cup/150g/5.2ozs of cake flour replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well. I usually mix up a big batch of this and keep it in a container ready for baking cakes as it produces a softer texture.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 - First scoop the Nutella into 12x 28g/1oz balls using two tablespoons or a small ice cream scoop and place on a sheet of parchment on a baking tray. Freeze for at least 15 minutes while you make the batter.
Step 2 - Preheat oven to 200C/400F fan forced and line a muffin baking tray with 12 liners. Sift the cake flour and baking powder into a large bowl and then whisk in the salt and sugar. In a large jug, whisk the oil, yogurt, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Make a well in the dry mixture and fold in the egg mixture making sure not to over stir and make sure to catch any flour at the bottom of the bowl, around 8-10 swirls with the spatula.
Step 3 - Mix the sugar with the cinnamon and heat the extra Nutella in the microwave for 20 seconds to loosen up.
Step 4 - Take a large or 60g/2oz ice cream scoop and scoop some batter into the muffin liners. Take the Nutella balls out of the freezer and sink each ball of semi frozen Nutella into the batter submerging it 3/4 of the way down. Divide the rest of the batter among the muffin cases so that it covers the Nutella and smooth over with an angled spatula. Place the Nutella in a small ziplock bag and pipe a swirl over each muffin and then take a chopstick or skewer and swirl the Nutella making figure 8 patterns. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Bake for 10 minutes at 200C/400F fan forced and then reduce heat to 180C/350F fan forced and bake for another 10 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes and then place on a cooling rack. Serve while warm and the Nutella is gooey.
Personal Note
These are so easy that they can be whipped up before people come over for a party. Plus there's something that happens when you offer someone something stuffed with Nutella-people absolutely love it. Whenever we have the Elliotts over I always make sure to bake a lot because the nieces and nephews love baked good because they don't get a lot of them at home. Mr NQN's nephews Jett and Finn are real fans of cakes especially. Last time they came over for fondue but I had a whole spread of baked goods to follow as well.
We invited everyone to come over at 1pm for lunch. Mr NQN's sister Amaya and Laporello arrived on time with kids Jett and Finn. The cheese fondue was made and ready to go. We waited for a while but the kids were totally transfixed by the copper cauldron of melted cheese. "Can we try some?" they asked and we figured that they could try a bit. Then as we got a message that Manu was running very late. Like over an hour late. By then the kids were really into eating the fondue. Fondue waits for no person and cannot sit there bubbling for over an hour. They were running so late that Jett remarked, "We will have to leave before they get here!" and then he suggested that we teach them a little lesson.
When they arrived, which was 1.5 hours later at 2:30pm Jett, Finn, Amaya and Laporello donned their coats and grabbed their bags and greeted their siblings at the door. "We have to go now!" they said. Araluen exclaimed "Oh no really?!" before they admitted that it was a joke. A pointed joke that I think may fall on deaf ears.
We also learned that Mr NQN's siblings are raising a generation of pranksters. Jett's cousin Aura (Araluen's teen, who identifies as gender neutral) switched key words on Araluen's phone to swear words and Ben's name to the poop emoji!
So tell me Dear Reader, what is the longest you would wait for someone with fondue bubbling away? Are you much of a prankster?