Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes … and getting featured on Femina

“A good cupcake and a good life have many of the same ingredients – good timing, sugar, and spice.”
Evelyn Beilenson

Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes, my current favourites! A recent visit to the cupcake factory led me to hop back onto the cupcake trail after quite a long hiatus. Much to the teens delight, these little babies are beginning to show up more frequently now … dressed in butter cream and often  ‘undressed‘ too!Either way, they go like hot cakes. There is something endearing about a freshly baked cupcake! Of course, given the choice, the call is always for the ones lavished with butter cream. For school snack boxes though, the plain ones work great as it’s still quite warm here in North India.So when one of India’s most popular magazines Femina {first published in 1959} asked to interview me, with a photo shoot at home to follow, I wanted to bake something ‘nice‘, something original and something that was ‘me‘!

Femina is a magazine, published fortnightly in India. It is owned by Worldwide Media, a 50:50 joint venture between BBC Worldwide and The Times Group. It is primarily a women’s magazine and features articles on relationships, beauty and fashion,travels,women fight back, cuisine, and health and fitness. It also features articles on celebrities and cultural facets of Indian women.

The Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes were what I baked! A natural choice because these are my current ‘cupcakes on the go‘, healthy, requested quite often, good with frosting and good even without. You can play around with the pairings as you like. Just plain almond meal is nice and carries frosting well. Roasted chopped almonds would pair well with a chocolate ganache, or maybe hazelnuts with a Nutella frosting {YUM}. I like the texture that almond meal adds. It’s a nice feeling to throw whole almonds into your processor with a little sugar and soon have ‘healthy nut meal’. I continue to use ‘raw sugar‘ in my baking and that has worked well so far. It’s marginally better than processed sugar. The good thing is that you don’t need to grind it as it has a nice, fine grain. I’ve even begun using it in butter cream instead of icing sugar. Works a charm, and is cheaper too!!The Borgonovo Bottle Indro from Urban Dazzle has my home made pure vanilla extract that is now ready. The polka dot cupcake liners are ones that my sweet friend Bina sent me from the US quite a while ago. I use them very sparingly Bina because I really like them, and they remind me of you.  When I’m in a more rustic frame of mind, I like to line the muffin tray with parchment paper squares. It gives them a rough, earthy look!

[print_this]Recipe: Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Summary: ‘Cupcakes on the go‘, healthy, requested quite often, good with frosting and good even without. The almond meal adds interesting texture and taste to them. Makes 12

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:

• Cupcakes
• 180g plain flour
• 85g whole almonds
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 150g raw sugar
• 100g butter
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 220ml 2% fat milk
• 100g dark chocolate chips
• Flaked almonds, optional
• Buttercream
• 100g unsalted butter, room temperature {not too soft}
  
• 50ml low fat cream, chilled
• 75-100g raw sugar {to taste}

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a 12 cup muffin tray with liners.
2. Run the whole almonds in the processor with 30gm raw sugar in short spurts until you end up with a fine meal. Don’t over process else you might have almond paste! {Thermomix Speed 10, 10 seconds, repeat as required}
3. Put in the flour, baking powder and salt and process briefly to mix. {Thermomix Speed 10, 20 seconds}
4. Beat the butter and remaining sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla bean and vanilla extract and beat again for 30 seconds. {Thermomix Speed 4, butterfly attachment, 4 minutes for butter, and 2 minutes with egg. Remove butterfly.}
5. Alternatively add the flour/almond meal mix with milk until just uniformly mixed. Donot over mix. {Thermomix: Add the milk and flour/almond meal mix and mix on reverse speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides once or twice}. Fold in the chocolate chips, and sprinkle over with flaked almonds if desired.
   
6. Divide between liners and bake for 20 minutes/until risen and golden brown. Cool completely before frosting.
7. Buttercream frosting
8. Beat all ingredients until smooth and firm. taste and adjust sugar if required. {I keep the butter on the cooler side, almost firm, as it is still warm-ish here
9. Place into a piping fat fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto cupcakes.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India