Nutella filling muffins.

At this period I really enjoy looking for various recipes for my kids' little afternoon snacks or breakfast for the weekend. This time I was looking for nutella filling recipes in a way to avoid using butter and at the same time add one of my favourite cake ingredients which is the yogurt. Take a look on the recipe below that I have prepared for you and prepare those muffins today within 30 minutes.

Preparation 10 minutes

Baking time 20 minutes

For 12 muffins

375 gr all-purpose flour (not more than that)

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, room temperature preferred

200gr caster sugar

240ml buttermilk or in case you don't have 190 ml fresh liquid cream combined with 90 ml of greek yogurt

120ml vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

270g chocolate chips (or chocolate chunks; or dark chocolate; or milk chocolate)

200 gr chocopaste (nutella type)

Take 12 full teaspoons of chocopaste and place them in non-stick paper. Freeze them for at least 2 hours. This procedure will enable you have the effect of liquid chocopaste internally.

Preheat the oven to 180C degrees. Use cupcake or muffin cups to as coverage on a 12 cupcakes pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl, gently mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until all dry ingredients are well combined.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar until combined. Mix in milk, oil, and vanilla. The mixture will be pale and yellow. Fold gently wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix everything together by hand with a wooden spoon. Don't overmix the mixture. Our target is to only homogenize the mixture in a way that all the flour is off the bottom and no big pockets of flour remain. The batter will be thick. Finally fold in the chocolate chips.

Divide batter among the cupcake cups until the middle. Place a freezed chocopaste piece and fully cover with the rest of the mixture all the way to the top. Bake at 180C degrees for 20 minutes. Tops will be lightly golden and centers appear set.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before serving. For fresh muffins store them in airtight container for a week, or freeze them for a trimester.

I love yogurt when they are wisely used in recipes. It helps the mixture to remain moist and enable the cake to be tasty. Buttermilk is a perfect ingredient as well. I give you two alternative scenarios.

I love the idea of replacing butter in recipes with vegetable oil. The cakes are light in taste and once the oil is vegetable (preferable corn oil) we are able to prepare different recipes and "play" with our flavour options.

For fruits muffins I will bring the same concept but with a different dosology in the recipe. Stay tuned!

The pictures and the recipe are made by L'atelier Sucré d' Eleni.