BAKING,  CUPCAKES/MUFFINS,  DESSERTS

Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes … and getting featured on Femina

2012/09/24 / 30 Comments

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

Almond Chocolate Chip CupcakesAlmond 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!Almond Chocolate Chip CupcakesEither 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.Femina Feature Sep 2012So 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. Almond Chocolate Chip CupcakesYou 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’.Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes 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!!Almond Chocolate Chip Cupcakes 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
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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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deeba
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About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.

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30 Comments

  • Riddhi kapoor

    2012/09/24 at 9:48 am Reply

    Hi Deeba…i think u hav missed out eggs in the ingrdients list….how many to use for this recipe?

  • Sally - My Custard Pie

    2012/09/24 at 10:08 am Reply

    Congratulations on the feature. I was in the online version of Femina many moons ago – it was a real thrill. What can I say – your images just get better and better. Your passion for baking is genuine and inspiring.

  • indugetscooking

    2012/09/24 at 10:14 am Reply

    Wow, you actually cut down on your catering business for the blog…That’s true dedication. Looking very nice on the Femina feature.

    The cupcakes are pretty little things….Pink decoration on a cupcake is the most sensible thing to do….Dainty!

  • indugetscooking

    2012/09/24 at 10:17 am Reply

    You actually cut down your catering business for the blog. That’s true dedication! Looking very nice on the Femina feature.

    The cupcakes are pretty little things. Pink decoration on a cupcake – absolute daintiness

  • shooting star

    2012/09/24 at 10:29 am Reply

    i love cupcakes too!!

    just a couple of questions :-
    raw sugar – is brown sugar or the normal sugar we use at home?? and can i use castor sugar instead(easier to get for me)
    almond extract – is it similar to vanilla extract and be gotten off the shelf??
    Procedure number 4 – is that for making the butter frosting..

    I know Im such a dumbo when it comes to cooking and asking these questions..just that I really want to make this..and luckily i have most of the ingredients in my fridge right now!!!

  • natasha

    2012/09/24 at 10:30 am Reply

    Hey Deeba,
    The cupcakes look so good and I love the idea of the parchment squares. Are you getting parchment here now? Mine still comes from the US!
    Congratulations on the feature! Great write up. You deserve all the accolades:)))
    Love
    Natasha

  • Sana

    2012/09/24 at 12:16 pm Reply

    Congrats!!!!!!
    U deserve it .
    Will soon try these cup cakes .
    They look a very healthy option with almond meal.

  • Anjali

    2012/09/24 at 12:32 pm Reply

    Congrat Deeba! on the feature in femina, you do represent all that Femina stands for, well deserved! The Cup cakes look dainty and grabable.

  • Deepali Jain

    2012/09/24 at 1:18 pm Reply

    Lovely cupcakes! I’m very tempted to ask you how do you manage to bake so many sweets almost weekly & still manage to look wow? Please share the secret 🙂

    Many congratulations on featuring on Femina!

  • Chef and Steward

    2012/09/24 at 1:52 pm Reply

    Congrats on the feature. Lovely spread. Very well deserved. Thanks for the raw sugar tip! As children of Caribbean and the cane sugar country of Jamaica, raw sugar is what is used everyday, so we are happy to see you using it here. Congrats again!

  • jehanne|thecookingdoctor

    2012/09/24 at 5:44 pm Reply

    Congrats Deeba, you rock! The cuppies look so good and though we don;t get Femina here, I manage to ‘peek’ through your gorgeous kitchen through the article on the post..it is high time a book is published dearie.

  • Wizzy

    2012/09/26 at 6:44 am Reply

    Such fabulous news on your feature. A well deserved honour.You are already such an inspiration and these latest cupcakes do not disappoint

  • manjeet

    2012/09/28 at 10:19 am Reply

    Hey Deeba,

    Wanna see the cupcakes I made from the recipe above ? 🙂 They were awesome…and the cake that I baked(same recipe tweaked for a cake) for my hubby’s B’day , complete with a frosting shaped into a likeliness of his face? 🙂 How do I post the pics? Where?

    Manjeet

    • Deeba @ PAB

      2012/09/28 at 3:23 pm Reply

      Wow, sounds great Manjeet! Mail them to me if you like and I can share them on the page with the recipe. Love to see what you made. You must begin a blog, you MUST!

  • Sahiba

    2012/11/14 at 2:42 pm Reply

    Hey Deeba.. Thanks for the great contribution u r doing by teaching the basics to wannabe Bakers like me !! 🙂

    I have a silicone pan of 12 muffins .. but this one doesn’t fit my microwave oven if the turntable revolves..
    If the turntable is not revolving, it sits perfectly. When it revolves, tha pan gets stuck at the microwave wall and stays there and stops revolving..

    Now, shd i go and bake with this configuration or is there a risk of explosion here..?
    plz guide how shd i go abt it??

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