Bakewell Cupcakes

One thing that I have been baking for ages and which always go down well are cupcakes; plain, simple ones with buttercream on top. But I wanted to experiment a bit with different flavours, because as tasty as they are anything will get boring if you have it too often. Since I made a bakewell tart recently I thought why not try to combine the two?! I planned to sub some of the flour for ground almonds, and put a bit of almond extract in the icing, plus obviously putting jam in there somehow. 

Unfortunately I then went to do some research into ground almonds in case they affect cooking time, and found out that someone already made a recipe for bakewell cupcakes :( It was actually someone off the Great British Bake Off (not the most recent series), so maybe part of my subconscious remembered it! 

The recipe I found called for lemon icing, but nobody in my family likes lemon so I halved my plain icing and flavoured half with lemon, and half with almond. As I suspected the almond went down much better! I found that the lemon juice completely overpowered the almond flavour of the sponge so didn't really taste like a bakewell tart at all.

I also tried a few different ways of putting the jam in! I don't have an apple corer so to start with I tried gouging out the top of the cake and filling that with jam, then replacing some of the sponge 'lid' and covering with icing. This worked ok but wasn't particularly elegant, so I decided to make them more like mini victoria sponges by cutting them in half, hollowing out the top and filling it with jam. I also used a little bit of icing to 'glue' the two halves back together.
These went down really well with my family, and my dad said they taste just like a bakewell tart which was the whole point!

Bakewell Cupcake Recipe- makes 12
For the sponge:

110g caster sugar

110g unsalted butter, softened
2 medium eggs, beaten
70g self raising flour
40g ground almonds
1tsp baking powder
few drops of almond extract

For the filling and topping (I didn't realise measure these accurately, so experiment):
Strawberry jam- roughly 1/2-1tsp per cupcake
Icing sugar- probably a few tablespoons
Water
1-2 drops almond extract
A few sliced almonds

Method:

• Using an electric whisk, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy, then gradually add the eggs. Tip- if you're worried about the mixture curdling, add a spoonful of flour with each addition of egg
• Fold in the flour and baking powder, then mix in the almond extract. Spoon the mixture between 12 cupcake cases and bake at 180° (for a fan oven) for 13 minutes, or until golden and a skewer inserted into the sponge comes out clean. Allow to cool

At this point it's up to you how you insert the jam and decorate the cakes, but this is how I did it:

• Mix the icing sugar and water to form a relatively thick glace icing; you want it to drip off a spoon, but not slide off the sponge. Add a drop or two of almond extract to enhance the Bakewell-y flavours!
• Take a cupcake from its case and slice in half horizontally. Use the knife to scoop a small amount of sponge from inside the cake, and fill this new hole with jam. Spread a little bit of the icing on the inside of the other half of cake, and 'glue' the pieces back together. 
• Placing the cake on a plate, use a spoon to drizzle lines of icing across the cupcake, and place a few almonds on top to decorate