Peanut butter and nutella is an amazing combination. The best thing since sliced bread, or the best thing on sliced bread rather! Apart from putting together the frosting I also experimented with my own chocolate cupcake recipe. It turned out pretty well, I do think it would work better as a cake or mini cake recipe though. The recipe turned out light, moist fluffy cakes, so light and fluffy in fact that they came away from the cupcake liners, still tasty though so I’m not complaining, and definitely a good attempt for a first try at complete recipe development.

Also, you’ll notice the title of this post is nutella, peanut butter ‘frosting’. We call it icing here, but I think ‘frosting’ sounds so much better.

To get the 2 tone frosting effect I put each frosting in separate disposable bags and then into a cotton piping bag. You can of course put both frostings in 1 bag on 2 different sides, I didn’t do this for 2 reasons, I wanted the 2 frostings fairly defined and I wanted to be able to store each of the left over frostings separately. You’ll notice the nozzle above is round, I did end up changing it as I wanted something frillier.

Chocolate Cupcake recipe

125 g butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup plain flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup buttermilk (1/4 cup milk + 1/4 cup yogurt)

Pre heat oven to 180C. In a mixer beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla essence. Add flour, baking and cocoa powder. While combining, slowly add buttermilk till completely combined. Using a spoon fill into a cupcake pan 3/4 of the way up. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Peanut Butter Nutella Frosting

100g butter

2 cups icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup nutella

Beat butter sugar and vanilla on a low speed at first so you don’t have any flying icing sugar. Then move to a high speed until light and fluffy. If your buttercream feels a little stiff, add in 1-2 tblsp hot water. Separate into 2 equal batches. Mix in peanut butter to 1 batch and nutella into the other. Fill a piping bag and decorate as you wish.

One of my favourite flavour combinations, peanut butter and nutella works so well together, if you’re a fan too, give this frosting a try!

PS. I was meant to post this a while ago but haven’t had a chance, so just wanted to say sorry to all those people fasting at the moment.

Ramadhaan has dawned upon us once again. Dates are out in full force, from fruit shops, to grocery stores and even the local supermarket chain. Dates are very nutritious, full of fibre and great to stave off hunger pangs, no wonder it’s the perfect food to break fast with. The best part is that this wonderful treat is not only good for you, it tastes good and most importantly it’s Sunnah!

We go through a lot of dates during Ramadhaan, so I’ve come up with some date recipes to spice things up a little. There’s no doubt that dates taste great just by themselves, but if you do want to try something a little different, are having guests over or even need a treat outside of Ramadhaan, give these a go.

Pistachio Cashew Dates

Split date on 1 side and remove pit. Crush pistachio and cashews. You’ll need 1 tsp of nuts per date. Fill dates with crushed nuts.

Coconut Almond Dates

This is an old classic. Split date on 1 side and remove pit. Fill 1 almond in each date. Heat butter on stove, throw in coconut, again you’ll need approximately 1 tsp per date. Roll dates in heated butter and coconut mixture.

Cream Cheese Walnut Dates

Split date on 1 side and remove pit. Fill each date with approx. 1/2 tsp cream cheese and 1 walnut which you can crush by hand. This is my personal favourite, it’s a recipe given to me by a friend. Thanks Christina!

Give these a try sometime, great during Ramadhaan or any time really. Ramadhaan Mubarak to everyone out there, hope you all have a blessed month.

Don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I have to say, these are amazing! I’ve been wanting to make these for such a long time, and I finally did. There isn’t actually any ferrero rocher in these, but the flavours have been inspired by those yummy hazelnut chocolates.

Ferrero Rocher Macarons

35g egg white

15g sugar

45g almond meal

65g icing sugar

2 tsp cocoa powder

Ferrero Filling

1/4 cup nutella

12 whole roasted hazelnuts

2 tblsp crushed roasted hazelnuts

Measure out your almond meal, icing sugar and cocoa powder, grind these to a fine powder and sift into a bowl. Weigh your egg white and sugar separately. Whip whites until frothy, begin to add your sugar in a slow stream until the egg whites turn stiff and glossy. Sift almond meal icing sugar mixture into egg whites then fold gently until it just combine. Fill mixture into a piping bag and pipe onto baking paper lined baking trays. Leave the macarons to set for half an hour or more. Pre heat oven to 150C and bake for 15 mins. For a more detailed explanation, check out this post.

Fill nutella into piping bag and pipe into half the macarons shells. Place 1 whole hazelnut in the centre of the piped nutella, top with the other shell and roll the nutella edge in crushed hazelnuts.

If you love Ferroros or nutella for that matter, you’ll love these Ferroro Rocher inspired macarons.

I made these for a family get together. They were a hit. They’re very simple, especially if you already have a cupcake recipe you love, but they’re different and very tasty.

What you’ll need

1/2 cup crushed pistachios per 12 cupcakes*

1/2 cup icing (I used buttercream and tinted it a light green)

Plus 1 tablespoon for garnish

I used my no mixer cupcake recipe.

*The next time I make these I’ll probably roast the nuts first. It brings out the flavour in the nuts and the crispier texture would go better in the cupcakes

After making your cupcake mixture, fold in half a cup of crushed pistachios. Fill and bake cupcakes as normal. I made these cupcakes with a plain buttercream but I think a white chocolate ganache would go nicely as well. Pipe on your icing and sprinkle with more nuts.

The pistachios add a wonderful texture while still keeping the cupcakes moist and fluffy. If you love pistachios, try my pistachio macaron recipe.

I don’t usually keep a lot of junk food in the house, so when I need a treat I have to be creative. If you’re in need of a simple, easy treat, with ingredients you’d already have in your fridge or pantry, give this a go.

Peanut butter banana pastry

I made a very small batch, this made 4 pastries, feel free to double or quadruple if you need more.

1/2 a sheet of puff pastry (you could just use slices of bread)
1 banana
2 tblsp peanut butter
1/2 cup cream
1 tblsp icing sugar

Pre heat oven to 190C. Cut pastry into 4 rectangles. Cut 2 pieces of baking paper and place your pasty inbetween them on the tray. Place something heavy on top of the pastry to keep them flat (I sandwiched the pastry between 2 baking sheets and also used ramekins for some weight). Put in the oven for 15 minutes, or until lightly golden, mine were more like golden brown, oh well, still tasted good.

Slice bananas. And whip cream with icing sugar. Once pastry is cooked and cooled split the pieces in half, this can be tricky, so you can skip this step. And just have an open pastry instead.

Spread a layer of peanut butter on each of the pastries, fill with banana slices and cream, top with remaining pastry slice and decorate how you wish!

This has got to be considered a healthy dessert right? It’s got nuts, fruit and dairy, must be good for you! Enjoy these little peanut butter, banana pastries, they’re a tasty treat for any time of the day!

A few weeks ago, I made these Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies from Picky Palate. They were delicious. My little man, Muhammad Uzayr loved them too, he even learned how to say “cookie”, I now call him my little cookie monster, for a little kid, he can devour a cookie in minutes!

Since he is so into cookies lately I decided I would whip some up for him (secretly, they were for me too). I didn’t have chocolate chips, so I had to come up with something else. I decided on peanut butter and white chocolate. I always have peanut butter in the house and I also had half a bag of white chocolate chips in the pantry. These white chocolate, peanut butter cookies were amazing, the flavours make a great combo. Especially when the cookies are still slightly warm, and the white chocolate is still gooey inside.

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

80g Butter

50 g peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 3/4 cup plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup roughly chopped white chocolate melts/buttons

Pre heat oven to 180C. Cream butters and brown sugar on a high speed till light and fluffy. Add in egg and vanilla and mix well. On a very low speed, tip in flour, salt and baking powder until combined. Lastly throw in chocolate chips and ensure they are mixed through well, you may need to do this part by hand. Roll dough into balls and place an inch apart on a baking sheet. I made fairly small balls.

Tip: I only baked 10 balls. The rest I left to freeze on the baking sheet, then packed them into ziplock bags once they were frozen. Here’s another secret, I would pop 1 or 2 out of the bag and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Who knew microwaves could cook cookies? Best thing I ever did! I had little peanut butter white chocolate treats when ever I wanted (I wanted them everyday, sometimes twice a day. Shhh!)

These white chocolate, peanut butter cookies are a must to try out! Let me know if you give it a go!