Nutella Muffins

Back when I was in college and living in an apartment with friends, the only person that I had to worry about was myself, and as you might expect - I became an expert at cooking for one. 👩🏻‍🍳  When I got married, I had to retrain myself to cook for 2 people.  Safe to say it took some time for me to master that task. 😬 (Sorry about that chicken-less casserole, honey.) 😂 Fast forward a few more years and I found myself having to double my meal output yet again as our family grew.  Learning how to cook meals for 4 individuals with very different food preferences was a challenging undertaking to say the least.  👶🏻  There were days when cooking enough food for my little family of 4 seemed like an overwhelming task.  

I had my doubts but despite my apprehension, I eventually got to the point where I could prepare Easter brunch for our family and have it ready before 5:00. 😂😅  And just when I felt like I had dinner for 4 mastered, we found  ourselves in close proximity to our extended families for the first time in our marriage and I was in a predicament.  I loved to entertain and cook holiday meals but I severely lacked any experience in large quantity food production.  Thank goodness for an understating family of guinea pigs.  ​

I couldn't help but think about the days when cooking for 4, or even 2, stretched my culinary skills today as I prepared food for a brunch to feed 80 to 100 people.  It's taken me 30 years to get here but I actually find a sense of satisfaction in cooking for a crowd.  🤣 Now, I really couldn't think of a better way to spend a morning than baking 17 dozen muffins. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Brunch in my opinion, should ALWAYS include muffins.  My muffins of choice today were banana chocolate chip, lemon crunch muffins, strawberry cheesecake muffins, pumpkin spice muffins, blueberry muffins and nutella swirl muffins.  They're all delicious but I'm especially partial to these new muffins with chocolatey hazelnut spread swirled into sweet vanilla batter.  

Nutella Muffins
1/2 cup butter, room temperature 
1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups flour 
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4-1/2 cup Nutella

Cream butter, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla. 

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt.

Stir into wet ingredients. 

Spoon into paper lined muffin cups. 

Spoon a Tablespoon of Nutella on top of each muffin. 

Swirl into Nutella with a toothpick or knife. 

Bake 5 minutes at 425. Reduce heat to 350 and bake 15-19 more minutes. 

This recipe was created out of necessity. I had a little bit of Nutella left in the bottom of the jar after I made a cake with chocolate hazelnut frosting and we can all agree, Nutella is way too good to throw away.  🤣 No sense in wasting a good thing.  I think these muffins might just be my new favorite way to eat Nutella.  

Ciao!

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