Almond Cupcakes with Blackberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Have you ever started making a recipe, only to learn you are out of one of the ingredients? You would think that after making many late night trips to the store, mid-recipe, I would learn to check for all of the ingredients I need before I start baking. However, when I started making these cupcakes, they didn't call for any unusual ingredients, so I was caught off guard when I discovered I was out of all-purpose flour! Normally I am good at coming up with substitutes for missing ingredients, but flour is essential in cupcake recipes.

I did another thorough investigation of my pantry, hoping I wouldn't have to venture out to the grocery store. In the back of the bottom shelf, I was pleased to discover a semi-old, half-used bag of bread flour. I can't remember what I had used bread flour for (I usually stick to all-purpose flour for all of my baking), but the combination of wanting to use up the flour and my desire to not have to go to the store initiated a new baking adventure. I decided I would use bread flour in my cupcakes.

My thoughts...would my cupcakes rise into small mountains, not rise at all, take longer to bake, have overcooked centers? After doing a little research on bread flour, I learned that it has higher protein content than all purpose flour. What does this mean for baking? Technically, bread flour should give your final product more "structure" and coarser crumbs than all-purpose flour. My taste test verdict - these could possible be the  best white cupcakes I have ever tasted! If you have any leftover bread flour sitting in your pantry, waiting to be used, give these cupcakes a try. I think they will be equally delicious no matter what type of flour you use!

ALMOND CUPCAKES
printable recipe
1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. almond extract
1 1/2 cup bread flour or all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream butter and sugar until combined.

Add eggs and almond extract.

Mix in flour, baking powder, and salt, alternating with the milk. Mix until just combined.

Fill lined cupcake pan with batter.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

BLACKBERRY CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
4 ounces cream cheese
3 tbsp. butter
3 cups powdered sugar
10 blackberries

Cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Mix in blackberries until smooth. Add powdered sugar until desired sweetness is achieved.

Frost cooled cupcakes and garnish with sprinkles and chocolate chip.

Yields 12 frosted cupcakes.

Recipe adapted from Crazy About Cupcakes.

Enjoy!

Almond Tarragon Sandwich Cookies

As I am starting to develop my blog, I am looking for desserts that are a little more complicated than your average chocolate chip cookie. Right now I have enjoyed finding an ingredient in my house and then coming up with a recipe to use it in. Sounds easy enough. Well, what if that ingredient is fresh tarragon? That's right, tarragon, like the herb. I was first inspired to use our fresh grown herbs in my Lemon Basil Blueberry Cupcakes. However, as you can guess, using basil in baked goods is far more common than tarragon. In fact, when I went online to look for a dessert recipe with tarragon, I only found one. It was a Slovenian Pastry, so while I am adventurous, I thought I had better try something different. It looked like I would be coming up with my own recipe. Normally this isn't too hard, but I forgot to mention one little thing. I don't even know what tarragon tastes like. So for starters, I went and picked some and smelled it. For some reason, it immediately reminded me of the smell of almond extract. I decided to use it in an almond sandwich cookie and I also added some lemon juice. If anything, I figured the lemon would help detract from the tarragon if the taste was terrible. However, luckily for me, these turned out fabulous! As if this wasn't enough of a challenge, we also had no eggs in the house, so my search began by looking for an egg-less almond cookie. After some major adaptations, here's what I came up with!

COOKIE
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup almonds
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 cup butter softened
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. almond extract

FILLING
5 tbsp. butter softened
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
4 tsp. lemon juice
4 tsp. water

Preheat the oven to 360 degrees.

Finely chop the almonds into a flour like mixture using a hand chopper. Add the flour, salt, powdered sugar, and tarragon. Stir well before adding the butter, lemon juice, and almond extract. I mixed with my electric hand mixer until just combined and then used my hands to form it into a ball. Next I made 18 small, slightly flattened balls out of the dough and baked for 16 minutes.

Combine all of the filling ingredients and mix with an electric mixer. Wait for cookies to completely cool before making a sandwich cookie with the filling in the middle.

This makes 9 small sandwich cookies. I was a little skeptical to make too big of a batch (and I only had 1/4 cup almonds). However, it could easily be doubled or tripled.