California Dreaming

This weekend, since the weather was so dreary, and plans for outdoor photos were thwarted, I decided to do some more baking. I had been meaning to make these cakes last week after I did the brownies, but there was an unfortunate incident with the dog and a bag of icing sugar so postponement was necessary.
 These are Bakewell cupcakes, I found the recipe on-line and adapted it a little by adding Vanilla frosting and more ground and flaked almonds. They actually tasted pretty good...

You Will Need:

125g Softened butter
125g Caster Sugar
1 tsp Almond essence
2 Medium eggs
2 tbsp Milk
100g Self Raising Flour
50g Ground Almonds
50g Flaked Almonds
1 Jar of Raspberry jam


Frosting:
225g Softened Butter
275g Icing Sugar
1 tbsp Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
Glacier Cherries.

The Cooking Bit:

* Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.
* Cream the butter and the sugar together with the Almond essence until light and fluffed up.
* Now add the eggs and milk and mix together a little, then add the flour and ground almonds and beat until           incorporated.
* Divide the mixture between 12 cupcakes cases and push flaked almonds into the top of each.
* Bake for 12-15 minutes or until nice and gold on top.
* While they are cooling start making the frosting.
* Put the butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and milk into a deep bowl (it can get a little messy) and whisk on a high speed for about 5 minutes until it's smooth, light and tasty looking.
* Cut a cone out of the top of each cake (put these to one side) and dollop in some jam.
* Replace the top of each cake and divide the frosting equally between each.
* Spread the frosting over the top of each cake and pop a glacier cherry on.
* Eat up.