Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Butter Icing

For this post and possibly others in the future I'm going to add the label "Go to Your Grave" along with the usual "Cooking with the Perrys". That way you'll know that you should make it. That is, of course, if you have the time to go to your grave and come back again.

I had been wanting to recreate the banana cupcake with Nutella buttercream icing that I had for my birthday in Houston. I couldn't find Nutella at Whole Foods and since it's the only thing I needed, I decided to try Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. You will never want to settle for Nutella again, although you have to admit it takes way less time to type. It was a little pricey, but I used about a tablespoon or so in my steel cut oatmeal every morning for a few weeks, and it was so worth it. So, so worth it.

I decided that I would wait to make these cupcakes until my little brother got into LSU as a celebration of his awesomeness. Good thing he is awesome and got accepted into LSU because these cupcakes were perfection. The actual cake part was from Martha Stewart's Banana Cupcakes  and the icing was pretty much a basic buttercream with the Chocolate Hazelnut Butter mixed in to taste. I don't think you need to add any kind of flavoring like almond or vanilla extract. You can find actual recipes for Nutella Buttercream icings, but keep in mind that the recipe makes 12 cupcakes so you don't need a lot of icing.