Almond Cupcakes

Almond Cupcakes ~ flavoured with deep, nutty, french bitter almond extract, brightened with the zest of a lemon and topped with natural flavoured cherry bakewell buttercream icing.

Last Friday afternoon I got the sudden urge to bake. It hasn’t happened in a while this baking urge but I’m guessing I felt the need to bake after having cupcake cases stored for more than a month, it just doesn’t seem normal?!, I still had (still have) some flaked almonds leftover from making this and this and then lastly I’d bought this almond extract after seeing it had no alcohol during an online shop that got delivered last wednesday.

I quickly googled lemon almond cupcakes (I have lemon zest stored away in fridge /freeze from lemons I’ve used for juice only) and came across this recipe adapted it to the old-fashioned creaming method and used natural flavoured cherry bakewell icing sugar for the buttercream because I’d bought it on special offer earlier in the year when promising myself to make macarons, never did. You can go ahead and follow the original buttercream recipe, just be wary of the measurements as 1 cup icing sugar is not 250g it’s 125g.

Recipe made 6 instead of 12 cupcakes, 1 was taste tested by my 4 year old before I could photograph, she also helped by sprinkling sprinkles on the cupcakes I’d originally intended to be topped with almonds only 🙂

These cupcakes are super light thanks to the creaming method, maybe a little too light as I used the same amount of baking powder as the original recipe but changed the method which incorporates more air into the mix thus, the top of each cupcake had tiny holes all over, nothing a little buttercream can’t cover up.

I enjoyed the deep almond flavour in both the sponge and icing. The lemon zest in the cupcake itself brightened the flavour, meaning these almond cupcakes are just right on a sunny spring afternoon.

• • 120g plain flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 40g unsalted butter
  • 150g golden granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 125ml milk (almond or dairy etc)

• • 80g unsalted butter
  • pinch of salt
  • 125 grams natural flavoured cherry-bakewell icing sugar
  • 2 tablespoon milk

• toasted flaked almonds
• sprinkles

Instructions

1. 1. Pre-heat oven to 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3. Line muffin tin with 6 liners.
   2. In a large bowl sieve flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside.
   3. In a separate large bowl or bowl of your stand mixer fitted with beater, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. (scrape the sides of the bowl down after 2 minutes)
   4. Add egg and beat in for a couple of minutes before adding almond and lemon zest, beat again for 30 seconds then alternate mixing in flour and milk.
   5. Fill cupcake cases with 1/4 cup (60ml) of cake batter each. Bake on middle shelf for 22-25 minutes.Remove from oven and place cupcakes on a wire rack to cool.

1. In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with beater attachment, on low-speed beat butter, salt and sieved icing sugar until thoroughly mixed then add 1 tablespoon milk increased speed slowly to high and beat for 5 minutes until light, adding another 1 tablespoon milk if necessary to achieve desired buttercream consistency.
2. Once cupcakes have cooled completely, spread the butter on top of each cupcakes with a palate knife and decorated with toasted flaked almonds and / or sprinkles.

Notes

Summary

Article Name

Almond Cupcakes