Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Filling and Buttercream Frosting

Yesterday was a very special day....My son, Christopher, turned 27 years old.  I would like to share a picture of him from yesterday....however, getting him to take a picture is like pulling teeth so I will share one of my very favorite ones of him from when he was little.

Christopher's first Christmas, 1985

For the longest time, I have made Neiman Marcus Bars for Christopher's birthday (I will share that recipe soon) because they are his favorite dessert.  They are also called Texas Gold Bars and Paula Deen's Ooey Gooey Butter Cake but the first time I made them I called them Neiman Marcus bars so it has stuck.  En-n-nyway (I know the spelling isn't right), I made those for him this year like I always do and then I decided to make him a surprise dessert...Nutella Cupcakes!  

Christopher loves Nutella!  I actually had made some Nutella cupcakes a few months ago from a recipe that I had gotten off of the site, Pinterest.   They turned out to be really low-fat, healthy cupcakes because after one bite we served them to our little birds in the backyard! (Yikes!)  I didn't want a repeat of that so after looking online for a recipe and coming up with nada, I thought of the magazine Cooks Illustrated.  They test recipes until they find the best version of them.  Perfect!  I have about 9798654 cooking magazines so I'm thinking surely I have a Cooks Illustrated magazine that has cupcakes in it!  Ta-Da!!!  I found one called The Best of America's Test Kitchen that I had bought a while back that had a chocolate cupcake recipe in it.  Whoop! (Texas Aggies yay!)  It had a ganache filling that I decided to change to Nutella and a chocolate frosting that I changed to Buttercream with toasted Macadamia nuts (next time I think I will use pecans).  I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

When I started mixing up the ingredients,  I realized how weird the recipe was for the cupcakes.  It called for  bread flour and vinegar.  It didn't have any milk, butter or shortening and it only had 3/4 cup of sugar.  It took all I had not to start changing it up to make it more like the recipes I am used to...but I stopped myself!
I am sooooo glad I did because it is probably the best chocolate cupcake recipe I have ever had.  I know I keep saying "the best" about alot of these recipes I am sharing with y'all but I really feel that way.  Here's the recipe...hope you try it soon....it is sooooo worth it!!

I bought these cute little liners and french saying picks from Etsy not too long ago and  I  thought they would look cute for this picture!  Can't wait to get to use them for a party or luncheon!

Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Filling and Buttercream Frosting

(Makes 12 cupcakes)

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (use high-quality bittersweet chocolate)

1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I couldn't find any so I used Ghirardelli)

3/4 cup hot coffee

3/4 cup bread flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Jar of Nutella

1 recipe of Buttercream Frosting (recipe follow)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

First of all, line a standard-size muffin pan with baking cup liners.

Place the chopped chocolate and cocoa in a medium size bowl.

Pour the hot coffee over the mixture and whisk until smooth.  Refrigerate until completely cool, about 20 minutes.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking soda together in a  medium bowl and set aside.

Whisk the eggs, oil, vinegar and vanilla into the cooled chocolate mixture......

...until smooth

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin pan cups and place one slightly rounded teaspoon of the Nutella on top of each cupcake.

Bake until the cupcakes are set and just firm to the touch, 17-19 minutes.  Cool the cupcakes in the mufffin pan until they are cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes.  Carefully lift each cupcake from the muffin pan and set on a wire rack.   Cool to room temperature before frosting, about 1 hour.

Frost with buttercream frosting and sprinkle with toasted macadamias, pecans, walnuts or your choice of nuts!  

 Traditional Buttercream Frosting

(from Savory Sweet Life blog)

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened but not melted

3 - 4 cups of powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla (mexican or tahitian is best)

Up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy whipping cream

Beat butter for a few minutes in a mixer with a paddle attachment on medium speed.

Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on low speed or the powdered sugar will blow everywhere until the sugar has been incorporated into the butter very well.  Increase mixer speed to medium and add salt, vanilla and 2 tablespoons of milk and mix for about 3 minutes.  If your frosting needs a little more stiff consistency, then add the rest of the sugar or if it needs to be thinned out add more milk 1 tablespoon at a time.

ENJOY!

Lightened Tomato-Basil Soup

Today, was the day I had been waiting for....a rainy day!!  I have been craving some Tomato-Basil Soup but it has been so hot I didn't want to make it.  But today....it rained pretty much all day and so it was a soup-kind-of-day!

I found this soup recipe in my Nordstrom Friends and Family Cookbook (love Nordstrom...best store ever)!  I've made it before and it is terrific but I really wanted to lighten it up a bit.  

For some reason, I thought I always followed recipes to the tee.    However,  since starting this blog, I now realize there are very few recipes that I follow to the tee.  I like to change a little bit here and a little bit there.  The recipes just give me a good base to work from.  This Tomato-Basil Soup recipe was no exception.  Even though the basic recipe is the same, I tweaked it here and there to my liking.  Hope you like it too!

Summer Tomato and Basil Soup (serves 8-10)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

5 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 large yellow onion, chopped

2 large leaves of fresh basil, chopped

3 cans (28 ounces each) San Marzano whole tomatoes in puree

14 ounces vegetable broth

1 cup of 2% milk

3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream

Kosher salt (I used about 2-3 teaspoons)

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons lightly packed fresh basil leaves, cut into fine ribbons

In a 6-8 quart saucepan over medium heat, warm the oil and coat the bottom of the pan.

Chop carrots and onions

Add chopped carrot & onion to pan

Add Chopped Basil

Saute until softened - 10-12 minutes

Add tomatoes including puree

Add Vegetable Broth and bring just to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes to blend the flavors

Remove from the heat.   Puree the soup in food processor working in batches.

Puree until smooth

Return pureed soup back to saucepan.

Add milk and heavy whipping cream and place over medium heat.
Warm until heated through.

Season with salt and pepper to your liking

 Ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with remaining basil, and serve immediately!

I toasted some sliced, french bread, put a slice a camembert cheese on top (next time I will use Brie cheese) and melted it in the oven.  Then I drizzled it with fresh, local honey and served alongside of the soup!

But in the meantime.....

I really liked the cans that the tomatoes were in....they looked old to me!  

I went to a local flower shop and picked out some flowers that looked like wildflowers!

And I arranged them in the cans! 

Nothing like fresh flowers to brighten a dreary day!

Not bad for a rainy Monday 

Hope your Monday was a good one too! 

Willy Burger....my new obsession!

Saturday night my husband James and I planned on eating out.  I was ready to go somewhere different but I just couldn't think of anything that sounded really good.  Italian...neh....Mexican...not so much....steakhouse...sigh!  Then, out of the blue, I thought of a new (I'm not really sure how new...but new to me) restaurant that I had heard of.  I don't even know where I heard of it (I remember a conversation but not who it was with...geesh what is wrong with me?).  Anyway, the restaurant was called Willy Burger in Beaumont.  I heard it was like a throwback to the 50's!  Now, I'm thinking....this is something worth checking out!

 When we first drove up and I saw the place, I was in love!  It was so cute!


The Airstream trailer, that you see above, is actually attached to the restaurant and it provides seating inside.  Such a great idea and it adds to the whole vibe (my 50's lingo kicking in) of the place!  I should've taken a picture of the front of the restaurant but I was embarrassing my husband with my excited picture taking.


The inside is a 50's style type of diner.  The employees all wear those little paper hats and you can see everything as they are cooking it.

Look at that pool-ball-wall surrounding the view of the kitchen...groovy!!

There is 70's music playing (which I love) but I think 50's would have been really awesome!  Who knows...maybe they play all era's and we were there on 70's night!  Anyway, you order before you sit down. And the menu was like an All-American, Oh My Gosh, High Five, Oh Yeah Baby kind of menu!  

sorry for the black borders...still figuring this blog site out!

If you can dream it up, I bet they can serve it up!!  

However, I am a Plain Jane kind of girl when it comes to burgers!  So I ordered cheese, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles (my mouth is watering again), a side of onion rings, and a big, fat Coke (anyone who knows me knows how I love Cokes)!  Oh Yeah Baby!!!  James ordered a burger, with barbeque sauce and onion rings on it and a side of fries.  We decided mutually that we needed both the onion rings and fries, so we ordered one of each. 

So, we are sitting there waiting on our food and I tell James this place reminds me of  the show Happy Days.  For those of you who were too young to know this (so jealous), Happy Days was a sitcom about the 50's.  It revolved around a diner, Arnold's, and the main characters were Fonzie, Richie, Potsie, and Ralph (I loved this show).  (I divert...it is a bad habit of mine)   Annnnyway, I start looking around at this restaurant and I realize all the details that they have put into it.  They have an arch wall of pennies that leads into the airstream trailer sitting area (it was full so we couldn't eat in there...sad face)!  I took a picture of the penny wall but I couldn't get a picture of the complete arch because it would have been a little awkward, even for me, as there was someone sitting it the middle of the arch! 

This is my partial picture!  Looks a lot cooler in person!

There was a huge EAT sign and there were pictures of Hollywood's leading ladies, from the 50's, above some of the booths!

I'm sure to James' relief, (I hope he doesn't hide my phone), our order is called!  When he sets it on the table I hear simultaneous voices in my head!  One is saying "you know that is going straight to your hips, right?" and "do you know how long it is gonna take to work that off?"!  The other voice is saying "oh my gosh this is amazing" and "I'm so glad James got fries so I can have some of those too?".  

Guess which voice won out?

This burger did not let me down!  It was one of the best burgers I have ever had.  And the onion rings....they were to die for!! 

THIS IS WHAT WAS LEFT!

I guess I should be glad something was left!

You should know these fries were the skinny, crispy ones....pretty much perfect!!

Now, I wish I would've had room for dessert!  Funnel cakes, shakes, coke floats, malts...heaven!  Maybe I'll make a trip over just for dessert! 

When we were walking out of Willy's I was thinking that this is what we needed in our community...a unique, locally owned, clean, affordable, fun restaurant experience.  I left feeling like I had been out to eat on vacation!

SO THANKS WILLY'S!

 Y'ALL GIVE IT A WHIRL......

(i know I'm a nerd)