Nutella & Fresh Raspberry Cupcakes

Over the weekend, I went to Costco and bought a six pack of amazingly fresh raspberries so I've been trying to figure out what to do with them, other than eat them. I finally decided to make cupcakes with them, along with my favorite chocolate hazelnut spread Nutella.

I'm not actually going to post pictures because I didn't decorate them and cupcakes don't exactly look fabulous unfrosted. They look like regular cupcakes from the outside. It's not until you bite into it that you get the surprise!

Anyway, here's the recipe:

3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- replace 2 tablespoons of butter with shortening (optional)
2 cups sugar
5 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 pint fresh raspberries rinsed and dried
about 3/4 cup Nutella

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, with the mixer on low speed, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined.

Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Lightly coat the raspberries with 1 tbsp of flour. Fill each liner 2/3 of the way with batter. Place one raspberry and about 1 tsp of Nutella on top, in each of the cupcake batter. Now go back and fill the liner to the top. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

This makes about 2 dozen cupcakes.

If you want, you can add a cream cheese frosting which would go well with the raspberry and nutella.

Enjoy!

Green Tea Cheesecake UPDATED

Hi everyone!

I apologize for having been gone so long. I started interning at the City of Berkeley's Public Health Department and going back to school to take the prereqs for grad school. Meanwhile, I will do my best to update you all with new recipes.

In the past few weeks, I actually went back to modify the recipe I had for the Green Tea Cheesecake. Here's an updated recipe with the changes I made.


For the crust:

1 package (10 large crackers) graham crackers crushed
2 tbsp granulated sugar
3 tbsp butter melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9in spring form pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper (optional).

Place graham crackers in a ziplock bag and seal. Use a rolling pin (any thing else heavy will do) and smash the graham crackers until crushed. (Alternative: you can also purchase graham cracker crumbs but they cost a lot more) Place the the crushed graham crackers, sugar and melted butter into a small mixing bowl and combine.

Pour the crust mix into the prepared pan and compress the mix onto the bottom of the pan so that it becomes hard. Place the crust into the oven and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

For the filling:

4 - 8oz boxes of Neufchatel cheese
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 tbsp green tea powder
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (NOT the imitation stuff!!!)
4 eggs

Place the cream cheese in an electric mixer and beat on medium high until smooth and creamy. Next, add the sugar and green tea powder and beat until smooth on medium. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until creamy.

Wrap the bottom of the prepared pan with foil, to cover the bottom and the sides. Place the pan in a roasting pan. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Add boiling water about 1inch up the sides of the roasting pan. Place the pan into the oven and bake for 55 minutes, until the top turns a golden brown.

Take the cheesecake out of the oven and cool for an hour and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 4 hours. It's best to chill overnight. When ready to serve, take a paring knife in the sides to loosen the cheesecake out of the spring form pan. Remove the cake from the parchment paper and place on a serving plate.

For garnish (not shown above):

1 cup frozen raspberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Place raspberries and sugar into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer on low heat. Stir occasionally until mixture becomes a sauce. Pour the sauce into a strainer to remove seeds from raspberries. Let cool and refrigerate. Drizzle over cheesecake to garnish.

Raspberry syrup may be prepared ahead of time.