Change Is Good?? | From Cupcakes To Caviar

Alternately titled “Eating My Words” 😛

More than once in past posts, I have mentioned various foods I don’t like. Liver, Hazelnuts, peanut butter (well, peanut butter is a sometimes thing in the occasional PB&J sandwich but not the great love that I know it is of many bloggers *suddenly hears a ghostly voice saying “Get me a beer and a sammich, bi***!”).

Most the these hates are come by honestly and not just the odd prejudice. Peanut butter is something I didn’t really even care for as a kid; even the smell bugged me. Liver…well, I was brought up when the mothers of our generation were still doing the “you will sit there at that table until you eat every bite of your food” so many was the time I found myself gagging down cold liver *shudders*. As for hazelnuts, I was blessed to be able to live in Germany for 3 years during the time my ex husband was stationed there and it seemed like every….single….piece….of….chocolate…was infused with either a hazelnut paste or just the flavor. I grew to hate hazelnuts lol.

This led to me not really able to get into the current Nutella craze. You know what I mean…. every day you can come across 25 blogs sporting nutella recipes 😛

But you know how your tastes change over time? Well, one fairly recent day, I was in the store and saw one of those nutella snack packs with the little breadsticks and bought it on a whim ~~as my husband looked at me as though I had lost it because he knows I hate the stuff~~. What can I say? I was shopping while hungry. Liver probably would have looked ok. I opened it for a snack later that night and tentatively took a taste. And fell in nutella love. ~~And then had myself voluntarily committed because I hate hazelnuts.~~ Now, mind you, it’s not something I eat every day and it’s never going to be on my top ten list of favorites but I do enjoy the snack packs now and a periodic spoonful of nutella.

So today I had an idea. I was going to make raspberry muffins and then thought to myself “Self… you’re freaking boring” So I thought I’d add chocolate. Then myself said to…well, myself… “self, this is looking better but you’re still not quite there. Try again”. At that point, I slapped myself around a few times to shut me up because it was getting a bit freaky in my head what with myself talking to myself. After a few slaps, the idea to put nutella in the muffins came to mind. I blame the temporary insanity on the slaps…and copious amounts of caffeine…and genetics.

I wasn’t sure how to incorporate it though. I knew if I just stirred it into the batter, the integrity of the batter would change and I had no interest in messing with batter integrity. I have enough trouble keeping my own intact at times. So in the end, I decided to just dollop it on top. It worked wonderfully. You have a moist muffin filled with chocolate chips and many bits of raspberry and then in the middle, a ooey gooey pocket of nutella that melds so well with the other flavors. Breakfast muffin, coffee break or dessert, I think you’ll like these. If you don’t like nutella, you can just make the muffins without it and they are still fantastic and a favorite of mine. These sink a little in the middle and need to cool a bit before you remove them from the pan or they will sink further. These are weirdly reminiscent of chocolate chip cookies in muffin form because the top and the edges gets that crispy cookie texture.

Chocolate Raspberry Nutella Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup oil
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups frozen (or fresh) raspberries
1 12 ounce bag chocolate chips
approximately 1/2 cup nutella (I didn’t measure; just dolloped on each muffin. It was about a teaspoon on each)

Preheat oven to 400. Grease or line 16 muffin cups.
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Stir.
In another bowl combine the milk, oil, egg and vanilla, Stir to combine.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir JUST until barely combined.
Fold in the raspberries and chocolate chips.
Scoop or spoon about a quarter cup of batter into each muffin cup; about 3/4 full.
Top each with a dollop (about a teaspoon) of nutella.
Bake at 400 until a toothpick inserted in the center (not through the nutella) comes out clean and the muffins are golden brown.
Let cool in pan on wire rack for about five minutes before removing from pan to finish cooling
The Joshinator getting ready to chow down on a muffin with his half nakkie self

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26 thoughts on “Change Is Good??”

Folks, I can relate to the aversion to hazelnuts. I was over in Germany about the same time as Jan was, and I can attest that to buy anything sweet without hazelnuts ranked up there with trying to cross the Wall…

Don’t get me started about the Air Force and green peppers.

26 thoughts on “Change Is Good??”

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