Nutella Icing

Hazelnut Cupcake Icing

I love love love Nutella! Nutella is amazing because it tastes chocolate-y, is healthier than peanut butter and it's made of skim milk!

According to the Nutella website, it was conceived by Pietro Ferrero in the 1940's. He was an Italian pastry maker and founder of the Ferrero company.

Due to rationing during World War II, there was a short supply of cocoa which led to a shortage of chocolate. Ferrero ingeniously used the abundant hazelnut to create more chocolate.

In 1964, this spread became known as Nutella.



While looking at the Billy Bakery recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes, I couldn't think of a more heavenly form of icing than Nutella Icing. I was really hoping for a "legit" recipe (i.e. from the Nutella website), but had no such luck.

I found the following recipe from the World Nutella Day site, and it works really well!

Yields Icing for 24 (and then some):

Ingredients:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup Nutella
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions*:
1. Cream the butter.
2. Add confectioners sugar and cream the butter and confectioner's sugar together.
3. Add vanilla and salt. Mix for 20 seconds.
4. Add 1/2 cup Nutella and the heavy cream. Mix.
5. Add the remaining 1/2 cup Nutella and mix.
6. Beat until the consistency is even. Make sure the butter has no lumps and it's a smooth texture.

(*The directions on the Nutella Day site said to throw all the ingredients in together, but for whatever reason that caused my first batch to have little lumps of butter. I used the directions above the second time, and there were no lumps)