Andrea's Birthday Extravaganza Part I

Happy Birthday Andrea!!


Andrea is my dear friend Seth's partner.  I met him about two years ago at a fab "standing" brunch Seth was hosting in his former Murphy Bed apartment  we lovingly called 2B.  We became fast friends.  We are both mildly scandalous, love major scandal, dance parties, and we are Italian!  So naturally when Andrea's 30th birthday plans were being discussed I knew I had to go big or go home.

Originally we were all going to go on some outrageous vacation, but as the months crept on time got away from everyone.  So instead Andrea had an Indian wedding style birthday: it spanned several days and there were multiple events/venues.  There was the dinner, the tea, the big party, the brunch and I think there were a couple of other smaller events I was not party to.  He had people flying in from Australia, Italy, and London.  He had half of the UN there - literally.  About half of the hot and successful New York Gay Community, and a couple of super gorgeous, fabulous, and really successful women there too - ahem.

I knew immediately that I was going to be making minis for the big shindig.  I wanted them to be bite sized so that no one would mess up their fab ensem and wouldn't need a utensil to eat it.  I decided I wanted to do three different kinds of cupcakes.  Obviously I was going to make my signature/award winning carrot cake.  While Sethers is a HUGE chocolate fiend I am certain he will tell you my carrot cake is his absolute favorite of all my cake recipes.  I also wanted to do a straight up white cake with vanilla frosting - vegan and then I decided to go little crazy and try a chocolate hazelnut cupcake with chocolate hazelnut buttercream frosting.  I mean Andrea is Italian after all.

So the week before I got to making the chocolate hazelnut cupcakes.  I used my famous vegan chocolate cake recipe and added 1/3 cup of nutella into it.  The texture didn't change too much and I spooned it into the minis and put the pan in the oven. 

The first round going in!
In 10 minutes my entire apartment was smelling of Bacio.  It was magic. Until... I opened the door.  MON DIEU!  What has happened?  How could this be? (all to be read in a bad French accent)  The nutella made the cupcakes so dense that they had sunken in the middle.  Oh no! 

So I quickly added a 1/4 of a cup of AP to the rest of the batter and crossed my fingers for batch two.  Again the aroma hit me and reminded me of that little agriturismo I stayed in in Tuscany that summer and the hot guy who ran it, Eduardo. Ah Eduardo.

Oh sorry, where was I?  Right. The second batch of my experimental chocolate hazelnut cupcakes.  I went to take them out and...Muffins.  Yep.  Too dry.  Hmm...  I packed them up in my zip lock bags and I hoped that the steam and the freezing would help make them become more moist and that the crater minis would come through in the end.

I moved onto the chocolate hazelnut frosting.  I added both cocoa and nutella - 1/3 cup of each to the frosting...and it was awesome.  It was then that I decided that going forward I would only add nutella to the frosting and perhaps inject it into the center of the cupcake to really send it over the top. *note for next time.

Ready to be frosted.  They look pretty good, the crumb is nice, and the little I tasted was pretty delicious.


Too late.  The cupcake are made.  The party is coming closer and I have to make two more batches of cupcakes, frosting, special twinkies, AND a last minute birthday cake - that is why this blog posting is in parts.

The final product: chocolate hazelnut cupcakes with chocolate hazelnut frosting and roasted hazelnut garnish.  Truly delightful!

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