A little bit about nutella cupcakes with nutella icing!

Last year for Charles' birthday I made him oreo cheesecake cupcakes...

Look how happy he was.
For the Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes recipe click here. It's super easy to make and requires NO BAKING


He turned 21 this year and I made him nutella cupcakes from this video I watched by one the Chiappa sisters

I added Nutella icing on top because... the cupcakes shrunk on the top and it looked quite ugly bare :/

That was just one of the things that went wrong during baking... Keep reading for Lessons Learned.

The star of the show... Nutella. Do you love these black and white striped cases?
Only after did I realise I had birthday-print cases, I'll use those next year

It's super easy to make. Just spoon a large dollop of Nutella into normal cupcake batter.
When it's cooked, the Nutella will remain a hot gooey mess inside.

Beautiful.

They came out wrinkly and sunken... So I decided to cover them in NUTELLA ICING

Nutella, butter and a touch of milk

I used wilton tip 30 to decorate these. The cupcake on the left was iced starting from the outside in and the one on the right was iced from the centre outwards.
Which one do you like better?

I needed to drive over to the white house to give them to him so I used this cake container that Lauren got me for my birthday!! It is awesome because I never have a container to put my baking in but now I do! THANK YOU

To add the finishing touch... Sprinkles

Nutella Cupcakes

4 eggs

1 cup white sugar

3/4 cup self raising flour

180 gr butter, melted

Nutella

1. Beat eggs and sugar until light

2. Sift through the flour and mix by hand

3. Beat in butter (make sure butter is slightly cooled ie. not hot off the pan, so the eggs don't cook)

4. Fill half the cases with batter

5. Spoon a large tablespoon of Nutella into each case

6. Top with remaining batter, leaving one centimetre for the cupcakes to rise

7. Bake at 200 Celcius for 12 minutes * test with a skewer

*A few things didn't go as planned during baking, this is the temperature suggested on the original recipe but...
I found after about 5 minutes in the 200 Celcius oven, the tops started to go brown while the insides were still runny. So I covered the top with aluminium foil. This however hindered the cakes from rising. So I would suggest baking at a lower temperature, maybe 190 or 180 and use cupcake cases that aren't so deep.
Also a good idea to rotate in the middle of baking, as some ovens have 'cold spots'.

For chocolate cupcakes, add 1/2 cup cocoa with the flour

Nutella Icing

2/3 cup melted butter

2/3 cup Nutella

1 cup icing sugar

1 Tbsp milk

1. Beat together butter and Nutella

2. Gradually add icing sugar, checking for consistency

3. Add milk if required

Icing too buttery? Add more Nutella.

Too crumbly? Add milk.

Too sweet? Pinch of salt.

And to conclude,

Still haven't found Lewis Road Creamery chocolate milk.

Signed,

Elisa

A little bit about Faro Stk grill & salad bar

I turned 22 on Thursday.
THANK YOU for all your birthday wishes. I felt so loved, truly!
It's funny how when you're in a relationship, the birthday wishes become "Happy birthday! Hope xxxxx spoils you!"

Nikki asked me, "Did you get to do something fun today?"
And I answered, "I skipped Fluids class."
I didn't go because I hadn't eaten anything all day so I went to Mexicali and because I'm signed up to their newsletters, I get a free meal on my birthday. Chicken quesadilla for lunch!

Mama asked me where I wanted to eat for dinner as a family. This is how the conversation went-
Mama: Where do you want to eat on Thursday?
Me: Lonestar.
Mama: Let's go to Faro.

So we went to Faro.
And we liked it so much we went again on Saturday!

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/farosteak/info and menu
FARO Steak & Salad Cafe
138 Hurstmere Road, Takapuna
09 486 5050
Open 7 days 9am-9pm

I'm not sure what genre this restaurant is. The other Faro brances on Lorne St CBD and Nuffield St, Newmarket are Korean grill bbq but this one in Takapuna is more asian-fusion. It's a cafe as well as a restaurant- they serve coffee, cakes and bakes...

Chocolate macaroons, brownies, cakes, butterscotch pecan and caramel slies, chocolate and banana cakes...

Cronuts, croissants, cookies, pastries, biscotti...

And they also do meals, and really cheap meals too!
Pasta dishes $15, chicken katsu, udon, pizza, paella and steak from $15. Not to mention the all you can eat soup and salad bar. ( for menu click here )

The salad bar is nothing fancy, but adequate to satisfy

 Capsicum, gherkins, olives, onions...

Condiments like pineapple, cheese and egg...

Also has ready made salads like coleslaw, pastas, bean, kumara...

Bacon soup (left) and cream soup (right)

They also have bread which you can toast yourself!!

 I love the cream soup!

Thursday night I had small size angus beef sirloin with creamy mushroom sauce $17 and a glass of peach ade

Saturday night I had angus beef sirloin, also small size, with red wine sauce $15.

Both steaks were great but a little on the pink side for my medium-well request.
Still, would definitely come again.
You can pretty much have a full meal for $15. Great for dates, I'd say.



And to conclude,

I am having so much First World Problems trying to locate Lewis Rd Creamery chocolate milk.
I have raved on in my post about the Food Show about their butter, so I am expecting this chocolate milk to be THE BEST chocolate milk I have ever tasted.
Got a few snapchats of it too from my friends.
I want to get my hands on it.


Signed,

Elisa