14, 15, & 16. Ferrero Rocher Cupcake with Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream

Making these cupcakes killed two birds with one stone. 1) Ferrero Rocher is the favorite candy of one of my good friends. It is not a holiday unless she has been given at least a 12 pack of the golden wrapped candy. So, giving her these little hidden treasure type cupcakes was a nice holiday treat for her. 2) These cupcakes were on My Top 100 List. So, completing them is another check mark of my list.

The recipe I found originally called for 24 candies, but I thought that was just a little too glutinous to give to my friend. So, I cut the recipe in half and still had enough batter left over to make three jumbo (Texas muffin sized) cupcakes. The batter was a little runny making it harder to work with, but it baked up like a dream- spongy, light, moist, and chocolaty. I think the Rocher candy definitely added to the flavor of the cupcake, without it, it was just plain chocolate and tasted like something was missing.

I topped the cake with an impromptu Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream. Without even trying I knocked two more items off my top 100 list- chocolate buttercream and an icing made with melted chocolate! All in all, I thought it was tasty, but I am not a huge chocolate fan, so it was tad bit over kill. BUT to my friend, the chocolate enthusiast, they were great. She loved them! So give these a try if you have a chocolate and hazelnut lover in you life.

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

Adapted from Sugar Coated Bliss

Ingredients
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1 cup Sugar

1/4 heaping cup Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

1/2 cup Vegetable Oil

1 Egg

1 cup Buttermilk

1 tsp Vanilla

12 Ferrero Rocher candies, frozen

Method

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

1. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda & powder, and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. In separate bowl mix together oil, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix well, for approximately 2 minutes.

4. Fill lined cupcake tins only HALF WAY full with batter. The batter will rise up.

5. Place a frozen, unwrapped Ferrero Rocher candy in the center of each cupcake.

6. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a cake tester stuck into the cake part only, comes out clean.

7. After cooling in the pan for 10-15 minutes, remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream

1 part Egg White; 2 part Sugar; 3 Part Butter. Plus Chocolate and Vanilla.

In this case I used- 2 oz egg white heated with 4 oz sugar and then whipped until fluffy and cool. Add 6 oz of butter (1 and 1/2 sticks) cut into 1 TBS slices to frosting. Beat until frosting curdles and reforms into a fluffy frosting making a nice slapping sound against the sides of the mixer bowl. Fold in melted chocolate (I used 1 Hersey’s milk chocolate bar and a palm full of semi-sweet chocolate chips. It is all I had on hand after I burned the first batch of melted chocolate) and vanilla. Frost cupcakes and garnish with chopped hazelnuts.