Super Jammy Bakewell cupcakes

I adapted these from Sue McMahon's recipe in her Cupcakes book...

This recipe works best on 12 standard cupcakes:

Ingredients
Base:
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
almond extract
2 medium eggs
2 tbsp milk
100g self raising flour
30g ground almonds
2-3 tbsp flaked almonds

Topping:
Raspberry jam
Icing sugar


Get the oven up to 190c/375f whilst you prepare your ingredients. First pop the butter, sugar and almond extract together in a bowl until you get a lovely light, fluffy mixture. You then need to add the two eggs ( i find it best to mix the yolk and whites seperately) milk, flour and ground almonds and mix until smooth.

To get the toasted almond topping, place the almond flakes onto the mixture once you have divided it into the cupcake cases. Don't worry about how many you use, but make sure you press down so they stick during the baking process.

Bake the cupcakes for 12-15 minutes until firm - the flaked almonds should be a golden colour.



Once the cupcakes have cooled, its time to turn them into proper Bakewells. As i grew up on Mr Kiplings Cherry Bakewells, I always thought cherry conserve would be the key ingredient, but it turns out to be raspberry jam.

With an ordinary butter knife, make an incision in the top of the cupcake (but don't slice fully) then pop in some raspberry jam. I would advise using the poshest jam you can afford, i used one from the local farm shop in Battlers Green, near Watford. To finish sieve over some icing sugar...trust me, these Super Jammy Bakewell cupcakes are much better than Mr Kiplings version!