Nutella Frosting

I SURVIVED! My feet may never be the same and my running shoes have been temporarily banished to the back of my closet; but I have the blisters, bruises, and a medal to prove that I successfully completed a Half Marathon. After flooding my body with water at the finish line and slowly making my way back to my car, I began my carb-loading mission. First stop: I-Hop, where I inhaled a ridiculous amount of pancakes and hash browns in record time. Next: My local market, where I bought the makings of spaghetti with garlic bread, not to mention various junk foods that I had been denying myself for the past three months or so. Finally: home, where I took a steaming hot shower to ease my muscles and slept for almost 10 hours straight. Now that the endless training is behind me, I can focus on more important things like getting back in my kitchen on a regular basis. I have been making a list of all the goodies I want to blog about for the rest of the year, and it will be quite the sweet filled adventure. The chocolate-y wonder that is Nutella was one of the items that suddenly appeared in my cart on my post-race trip to the market. While I will gladly eat it with a spoon out of the jar, I had an overwhelming need to bake cupcakes. As I always have the baking staples ready at home it was no problem to whip up some simple yellow cake batter, which was a perfect vessel for the creamiest, lick-the-bowl-clean Nutella frosting that ever existed.

Nutella Frosting

• 1 cup Nutella
• 1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tbsp. milk or heavy cream, either works fine
• 2 cups powdered sugar, or more depending on the consistency

Cream the Nutella and butter together and add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, alternating with the milk. Mix well until it reaches the appropriate level of "spreadibility" and don't be afraid to leave a little in the bowl for yourself.