Honeymooner ’s Strawberry Almond Cupcakes

Why honeymooners you might ask? Simple. So many of us are home just the two of us for close to two months because of Corona virus lockdown and you just want some cake. What to do? You can’t scale down a cake with an 1/8 of an egg, it’s ridiculous and not doable. So how can you have your cake and eat it too? Cupcakes of course. These are not muffins, they are a cake batter divided up into 12 and if you want to pop the extras into the freezer to have fresh cake (just defrost in the microwave or leave out and it’ll be ready in about 30 minutes or so) you can bake a cake in portioned size. No excess sitting there to tempt you into eating a whole cake. We had some strawberries that were starting to look a little sad but were still good and DH said how about cake? And OMG the scent of these baking in the oven is just amazing. They taste even better. So let’s get cracking!

Start by taking out the butter/margarine and cut into cubes and let soften, set aside.

Then, preheat the oven to 375 F and wash and clean the strawberries and cut into quarters. Next take your well washed orange and grate 1/2 the peel right onto the strawberries and set aside. You are NOT adding sugar to them since this will draw out the liquid and we do not want that.

By now your butter/marg should’ve softened up and you cream it (beat smooth) with the sugar like so

Use a spatula to scrape down the combo and while beating, add the egg.

It should be thick and creamy. Then, add the milk/soy milk, extracts (do NOT skip the almond extract, it adds incredible flavor) and beat smooth. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt, stir together and while mixer is running on low, shake into the side of the bowl and mix just till incorporated. This is a very thick batter.

Next add the strawberries with orange peel, and flick mixer on and off very very briefly or fold in with spatula. Don’t crush the strawberries, just briefly mix them in.

As you see, the berries are still in their shape and the batter is not pink. That’s what you want.

Take an ice cream scooper like Oxo and take out your muffin pan and either line with paper liners or spray with Baker’s joy (or grease and flour muffin cups) and scoop batter evenly into muffin cups making sure the strawberries are distributed evenly throughout the batter and the muffin tin.

Fill the muffin tin.

It fills up about 3/4 of each muffin cup.

Bake for 22 – 25 minutes or till browned and a toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean.

You will enjoy your individual cakes and know you have backup cake for later!! Nice served with some whole strawberries for garnish. Enjoy!

Honeymooner ’s Strawberry Almond Cupcakes

1/2 cup butter/margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk/soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 3/4 cup flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
Grated rind of 1/2 orange
1 1/4 cup quartered cleaned strawberries

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Grate the orange peel and put in bowl with quarter strawberries, set aside.

Beat sugar and margarine till smooth and creamed. Add egg and beat until fully incorporated. Slowly add milk to the mixture and then add the two extracts. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt, stir together. With mixer running slowly add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture till just combined. Add the strawberries/orange peel mixture, mixing very, very briefly or better, using a spatula – we don’t want to crush them we just want to fold them in.
Grease and flour 12 muffin cups Or alternatively place paper liners in the muffin cups and evenly distribute the batter and the strawberries (it’s important that no one cupcake gets an overload of the fruit or it will not bake properly, divide evenly) over the 12 cups.

Bake the cupcakes for 22 to 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on wire racks. No need to frost these, they are super moist and flavorful as is. Lovely garnished with a few whole strawberries. Enjoy!