Almond Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream and Blackberries

There’s not much of a back story to these cupcakes.  Blackberries were on sale at my local market, and I wanted to use them to top a cupcake.  I utilized an almond cupcake recipe I’ve used before, and tried out a new way to do buttercream (inspired by my foray into vegan baking) that uses shortening as well as butter.  I’m really pleased with it and I think I’ll be using that combo for all of my buttercreams from now on!  I did a simple 1-1 ratio, and it turned out well.  I will say that with just using cocoa powder, the frosting tasted very much like milk chocolate.  Next time, I’ll try using some melted bitter-sweet chocolate to give it more depth of flavor.  All in all, a very good cupcake!

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Almond and Vanilla Cupcakes

Almond Vanilla Cupcake

This will be the second baby shower for which I’ve made these cupcakes.  Their delicate flavor and lightness just lend themselves to such an event.  I decided to up my game with this batch (my last batch was made during the cupcake blog hiatus and never made it into a post), and add ground almonds into the cupcakes and vanilla bean seeds into the frosting.  I’m hoping it will intensify and fancy up the results.  Depending on where you live, you can get very reasonably priced vanilla beans at Cost Plus World Market.  They are one of my favorite places to go when I need an obscure spice and don’t want to pay insane grocery store prices.  I wish I had a market near me that offered spices in bulk, cheap.  Well, enough of my spice rant…on to the cupcakes!

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Gluten Free Cupcakes: Lemon Almond

Lemon Almond Gluten Free Cupcakes

A friend of mine who recently had a birthday has  a twin sister who is gluten-intolerant, so when the invite for the potluck party was made, it was pretty clear that I was going to make gluten-free cupcakes.

Since it is finally summer in this city, it seemed like a citrus-combo cupcake was a best-fit for the weather and a backyard barbeque.

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