We’ll be honest…things don’t always go according to plan. The plan was to make these amazing cupcakes- follow a recipe- tweak it the end…and it was a big, fat fail. The batter oozed all over the oven and left a hardened mess on our cupcake tins. So…plan two.
Make the next cupcake on our cupcake wish list….and buy a new muffin tin.
Cherry Almond Tea Cakes inspired by Martha Stewart’s Tiny Cherry and Almond Tea Cakes from her inspiring cupcake book Martha Stewart’s Cup Cakes. The only thing not inspired by this recipe was the size of the cake we made- and…while we are being honest…that is only by error as we didn’t see the “mini” part of the instructions on greasing the “mini muffin tins”…so ours were big. But yummy.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing the tins
1 cup all purpose flour, plus more for tins
1 cup unblanched almonds
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
5 large egg whites
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Kirsch (cherry brandy)
sweet cherries with stems intact…one for each muffin tin
1. Preheat oven to 400 f.
2. Brush muffin tins with butter and then lightly flour.
3. In a small saucepan melt the butter over medium heat, cook, swirling pan occasionally until butter is lightly browned and fragrant.
4. Skim foam from top and remove from heat.
5. In a food processor, finely grind almonds and transfer to a bowl.
6. Combine flour, salt and sugar.
7. Whisk flour mixture with almonds.
8. Add egg whites and whisk until smooth.
9. Stir in Kirsch.
10. Pour in browned butter.
11. Whisk to combine.
12. Allow mixture to sit for 20 minutes.
13. Place 1 tablespoon of batter in the bottom of each tin.
14. Set a cherry in the center of each tin.
15. With a small spoon gently spoon more batter over the top of the cherry covering the top of it…
This is where we can see mini muffin tins making more sense…the cherry would then poke out the top a little and look prettier after it were baked with cherry juice peeking through the top of the muffin…next time!
16. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes turning half way through the baking process.
Your testing stick should come out clean.
Remove from oven and let muffin tins cool on racks for about 10 minutes before removing the muffins themselves to continue cooling on their own.
These little (or not so little in our case) tea cakes were delicious! The addition of the almond made them dense and more muffin like, not sweet. The cherry bit was soft and sweet like a little surprise in the center of your otherwise not so sweet muffin.
Be forewarned…these are a bit dangerous as they have the pit in them! You could pit your cherry first – just be sure to leave the stem intact. We didn’t find the pit to be a problem- it made them charming actually and they felt a little old fashioned. Something to think about though…especially if you are making them for children or sharing with friends who might not be expecting to find a pit in the center.
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