I think it was 1996 in Vienna, Austria that I first tried Nutella. It was my last summer of college, my first time out of the country, and my first exposure to the European breakfast… what was this brown stuff with the funny name? Why is there lunch meat and cheese on the breakfast table? Crusty bread? Well i quickly fell in love… with the European breakfast and with Nutella!

So a few weeks back when I ran across a recipe on Pinterest for Self-frosting Nutella Cupcakes I quickly pinned it for future reference… tonight = future reference.

I tried baking with Nutella once before. I was making baked apples and decided to prep two extra halves stuffed with Nutella… in my mind it was going to ooze and melt as the apple baked, creating a piping hot chocolate covered apple masterpiece… WRONG! Unfortunately it seized and came out more like an turd topped apple than my lucious vision… lesson learned. Next time I’ll bake the apple and drizzle it over when it comes out of the oven… or stick to butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.

Anyway… I whipped these up pretty quick. I used a small knife to swirl together the batter and Nutella… next time i’ll try using a bamboo skewer. The flavor on these are great though I left them in the oven just a touch too long.