It’s Valentine’s Day, and because we at BIK love our readers, we made you a cupcake recipe!  You can make these baby cakes for your very own babycakes or anyone else you love (such as your gals at BIK!).  It started as a plan to replicate this recipe from Martha Stewart Living and morphed into Orange-Almond Cupcakes with Almond Buttercream, with the icing swiped from a Gourmet macaroon recipe.  This cupcake recipe takes its flavor from almonds and orange zest, making a delicately scented, totally delicious cake.  The ground almonds enrich the batter and the orange adds a fresh, fruity note. (You can leave the ground almonds out, just bump the flour back up to 1½ cups).

Taking a page from wedding cakes, I brushed the cupcakes with melted orange marmalade before icing them, but I really wish I had thought to use amaretto instead. Doesn’t that sound naughty? I think you should definitely do that! And the jam makes spreading the icing a little more of a pain in the arse, but I think amaretto would not because the cake would absorb it more readily. But do whatever you like. The marmalade was delicious and totally worth doing.

About the icing: It is a little high-maintenance.  The BIK gals know a thing or two about high-maintenance, and we wholeheartedly believe it is not a bad thing.  Now, you could surely throw any old icing on here and it would be fine.  BUT – if you were to learn only one high-maintenance confection technique in the whole world, I think I would recommend this one.  It’s a Swiss buttercream, and it’s not technically difficult, just more time consuming than tossing a little butter and powdered sugar together.  The way it works is you basically make a meringue that looks an awful lot like Fluff (go, Fluffernutters!). It’s heated over simmering water to dissolve the sugar.  Then, you beat butter in slowly until it all comes together in a silky, luscious mound. If you’re wary of salmonella, I guess you should be wary of this recipe, as the egg whites are heated but not enough to kill all the shady stuff.  A number of icings use egg whites in various ways.  If you’ve ever made Italian buttercream, that is a close relative of Swiss buttercream.

Why go to all that trouble?  This is restaurant icing — the silky, buttery confection that makes bakery cakes special. It’s smooth, not-too-sweet and totally addictive. Luckily, the recipe makes more than you need for the cupcakes. It freezes well, but I advise just keeping it in the fridge and spreading on graham crackers whenever the mood strikes (aka: all the time).  You don’t even really need a cupcake, just make up a bowl, grab a spoon and snuggle up with “When Harry Met Sally.”  That’s actually kind of my ideal Valentine’s Day.  But, if you’d like to whip up a proper dessert, make the cupcakes, too, sprinkle with almonds, and brace yourself for the flood of marriage proposals.  Happy V-Day, loves!

Orange-Almond Cupcakes

Loosely adapted from Martha Stewart Living

½ stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

½ teaspoon almond extract

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Zest of one orange, finely grated

1 ¼ cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup ground almonds (processed in food processor until sandy)

½ cup whole milk (use skim if you like)

½ cup orange marmalade melted, or amaretto (about 1/3 cup)

Heat oven to 350. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. In small bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and ground almonds. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy and well combined. Beat in eggs, one at a time, extracts and orange zest. Beat in flour mixture, then milk, stopping when well combined. Divide batter among muffin cups and bake 15-17 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.

Brush with marmalade or amaretto, letting liquid soak into cakes for a few minutes, then spread with Almond Buttercream Icing.

Almond Buttercream Icing

Hardly at all adapted from Gourmet, but with notes and encouragement from BIK

2 large egg whites

½ cup granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract

½ cup sliced almonds

Place clean bowl from electric mixer over a pot of barely simmering water, whatever size pot works with your bowl.  Don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water.  If you do not have a stand mixer, you can use a hand mixer, just prepare for a workout.  Also, if using a hand mixer, use beaters, not whisk attachment.  In bowl over simmering water, whisk whites, sugar and salt without stopping until mixture is quite warm and sugar is dissolved. It should look white and frothy.

Place bowl in mixer and beat with whisk attachment (only if using stand mixer) and whip at medium-high speed until cooled and whites hold stiff, glossy peaks. This can take a long time, so don’t give up. You’re getting close when it gets thick, sticky and shiny. It looks a lot like paint. Keep going.

Once you’ve achieved stiff peaks (this took me a good 10 minutes), add butter one piece at a time. The mixture will probably break and look grainy, but keep going. Beat well after each addition, and after the last of the butter is added. Add extracts and keep going. Don’t stop beating (except to scrape down the bowl) until it comes back together and makes a smooth, spreadable icing. It’ll all be worthwhile. Then spread it on the cupcakes, sprinkle with almonds and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

OK, BIK friends, I’m sure we can all agree that pretty much anything (questionable company, food, work, you-know-what) is better after a few glasses of wine. But you know what is not better? Lemon cake. I found out the hard way, trying to squeeze one more recipe into a day jam-packed with work, socializing, exercise (we’ve been eating a LOT, after all – these recipes require numerous trials, people!) and other stuff. Other tipsy people dance on tables. I bake lemon cake.

Why lemon cake? Well, it was our Nana’s birthday last week and it’s her recipe.* And she is awesome, as is her lemon cake. If Nana had a computer and knew what this whole interwebs thing was all about, we like to think she would be a BIK kind of gal (although we would surely hear a word or two about our potty mouths). She is smart, sassy and loves to bake. She always has something sweet to plop in front of us when we visit, and it’s often her beautiful and easy English lemon cake. It’s interesting enough to make someone feel special, yet basic enough that you can toss it together in no time. It’s a rich, sweet cake, sort of like a pound cake, drizzled with a tart lemon glaze. Addictive.

So, about my tipsy version. I’m still not sure what I did wrong. Several things, probably. But it yielded completely flat, unphotogenic, crispy (not burnt, just literally crispy … ?), dense, etc. … lemon cake. Anyway, because I love you THAT much, I made another one. Make this for breakfast, to bring to a potluck, to serve for dessert, to eat in your bed while watching trashy TV, anything! If you’re feeling lazy, I can respect that – I won’t make you feel guilty about not using fresh lemon juice. I have a green and yellow bottle in my fridge, too. But I do hope you use the lemon zest in the topping. That’s where the real tartness comes from, and it’s sooooooo nice to balance out the cake’s richness.

*Actually we don’t know where the recipe comes from besides Nana’s recipe box. If this looks like something you have seen, please let us know so we can credit the source.

Nana’s English Lemon Cake

Cake:

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 ¼ cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ cup milk

Glaze:

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup lemon juice

3 teaspoons lemon zest

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or coat a 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. In a small bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking powder. In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar until pale and smooth. You can use an electric mixer, although I have also done this by hand successfully. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in about one-third of dry ingredients, then beat in half the milk (don’t get all crazy with measuring, just alternate dry and wet ingredients). Repeat until all milk and dry ingredients have been incorporated. Pour into pan and place in oven. Bake about 70 minutes, or until tester inserted into center comes out clean.

While cake is baking, stir together sugar, lemon juice and zest over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until syrup simmers and sugar is dissolved. Set aside.

When cake is finished, leave it in the pan and pour syrup over hot cake slowly. Let cake cool in pan (for maximum glaze absorption). This cake is best at room temperature.