Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins

For my last batch of muffins in February, I decided to go all out and make something chocolatey, which I had been avoiding for most of the month because it's much harder to feign eating a healthy breakfast with a chocolate muffin stuffed in your mouth. These muffins have chocolate and hazelnuts in them, as well as a dollop of Nutella inside which is melty and extra delicious if you eat these muffins when they're still warm. (Full disclosure, I actually used Korger's brand of Nutella because they have a crunchy version that has little bits of hazelnut in it, too. You can use whatever kind you prefer though.)


Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup dark or Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 c chocolate-hazelnut spread (such as Nutella)


Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 F and lightly grease the wells of a muffin pan. Combine the flour, sugar, hazelnuts, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, and whisk until thoroughly mixed. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat vegetable oil and eggs until well-combined. Stir in milk and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture all at once and stir for 20 seconds, or until just combined. Batter will still be lumpy and may even have small patches of dry flour.

Spoon batter into muffin pan wells until 1/3 full. Drop a teaspoon of chocolate-hazelnut spread in the center of each muffin. Spoon more batter into wells, covering chocolate-hazelnut spread completely, until 2/3 full. Place pan in oven and immediately lower temperature to 350 F. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Allow to cool 3-5 minutes before removing muffins from pan.


Servings: 12