All signs point to Fall. My nephew started Senior Kindegarten yesterday, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is back at Starbucks, and TIFF starts this week.  I am actually super excited for Fall this year, and to get back into cooking dinners. I hate turning on the oven/standing over the stove when it’s 45 out with the humidity, and as a result, didn’t cook much this summer. There were a lot of dinners that consisted mostly of cheese and crackers, hummus and pita, or that one time back in June when I made Homemade Pesto and tossed it with a variety of carbs (pasta! potatoes! bread!). I’m looking forward to apple picking and baking with cinnamon and pumpkin, but I have a backlog of my last few summer baking projects and one delicious Emmy feast to blog about first.

To kick it off, here are Kristine’s birthday cupcakes. I previously made cupcakes off of Ming Makes Cupcakes that were amazing, and gave another recipe a try. I would say that the Espresso Fudge Cupcakes trump the Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes, but if you have a Nutella fan in your life, you have to try the Nutella Frosting. Weirdly, I’m not a huge Nutella fan, and as the recipe only called for a half cup of it, I decided to use the rest of the jar I bought to fill the cupcakes. Once the cupcakes were completely cool, I carved out the middles and scooped Nutella in. I had also met Sandra for dinner earlier in the week, and she brought me some Lindt bars from the chocolate closet, one of which was a huge Milk Chocolate Hazelnut. I cut it up into triangles and stuck them on the top to finish these off.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Source: Ming Makes Cupcakes 

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sour cream

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Nutella Frosting

1/2 cup Nutella

1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted

5 tbsp heavy cream

+ extra Nutella for filling

Directions:

  1. Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Add butter, sour cream, egg and vanilla, and beat until well-blended and fluffy. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.
  2. Use a small sharp knife to carve out the middle of the cupcakes.  Fill with Nutella.
  3. For frosting, beat ingredients together until smooth and fluffy. Spread on top of cupcakes.