Monday 9 June 2014

Almond Butter Cupcake with Hazelnut Toffee


Hi
This is for you!



It’s almost 2 months since I came back from Hong Kong and my last bake was Martha Stewart Yellow Butter Cake.


I really had a great time in Hong Kong.  I went to 西貢 where my friend stays.  We had wonderful seafood dinner near the beach.  The ambience was so beautiful and peaceful. My friend drove us to 大埔 and we visited the wishing tree.  I didn’t get to meet Anne but she’s right, Shanghai Street are full of baking stuff.  You could simply find anything you want there.  The egg tarts were so yummy and it’s selling everywhere on the street. 

I started baking egg tarts when I came back from Hong Kong.  The recipe from Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Anne (The Bare Cupboard) were good.  But the challenging part was removing the tarts from the mold.  I’m still facing the same issue.  But the tarts are so good that my children don’t mind to eat it from the mold :D

I started my new job not long after I came back from Hong Kong.  The new job is challenging and demanding.  I hope this is just temporary...

I really missed my baking and the comment from my fellow bloggers.  I haven’t been baking new recipe since then as the current job has taken all my energy that I'm too tired to do anything.  

Thanks to Zoe.  She has been sending regards to me and I feel so encouraged by her message.  I want to have break through!!  I can’t give up my passion because of work.  So I started something simple - Almond Butter Cupcake


I’m very happy with this simple little butter cupcake.  The cupcake is supposed to top up with mini choux pastry of about 1 cm diameter and stack up like a tower.  But I find it too troublesome to pipe-out hundreds of mini choux pastry.   So I decided to replace it with hazelnut instead.


The cupcake is full of almond flavor.  I also added hazelnut into the cupcake and it made the whole cake taste so nutty.


Loving the sweet crunch of toffee but cleaning the stubborn and sticky pot is a dreadful job and can be a problem too.  What I did was to fill up the pan with water until the water covers all the sugar residue.  Put the pot back to the stove and let the water simmer.    The boiling water will gradually melt the sugar from the pot and then I’ll quickly rinsed off under the running water.


Ok, here u go, the recipe for Almond Butter Cupcake with Hazelnut Toffee which was adapted from Women’s Weekly magazine





INGREDIENTS
Amond Butter Cake
150g       butter, softened
½ tsp       almond essence
150g       caster sugar (I reduce it to 90g)
2 no.        eggs
50g         self-raising flour
75g         plain flour
60g         ground almonds

Hazelnut
Enough to top up the cupcake.
Toast a little in the oven

Toffee
220g       caster sugar (I reduce to 150g)
125ml     water

METHODS
(1)Combine sugar with the water in small heavy-base saucepan.  Stir over heat, without boiling until sugar dissolves; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, without stirring, until mixture is golden brown.  Remove from heat; stand until bubbles subside before using.

(2)Preheat oven to moderate. (180ºC / 160ºC fan assisted).  Line 6 hole large or 12-hole standard muffin tray with paper cases.

(3)Beat butter, essence, sugar and eggs in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy.

(4)Stir in sifted flours and ground almonds, in two batches.  Divide the mixture among cases; smooth surface.

(5)Bake large cakes about 20 minutes, small cakes about 20 minutes.  Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

(6)Arrange the hazelnuts on the cupcake.  Drizzle and make some spiral over the nuts.

HAPPY BAKING!

I’m submitting this for Little Thumbs Up, which is just nice that the theme for June is Butter. 





Thank you for these 3 beautiful ladies.