Almond Cream Pound Cupcakes with Cherry Preserves and Vanilla Bean Mousseline

As a big thank you to all of you who came to visit us and follow our blog we thought we'd share one of our popular recipes, Almond Cream Pound Cake. 

It is wonderful as a birthday cake, bundt cake and even though this is a dense cake it makes a wonderful cupcake too. It is lovely with soft vanilla buttercream and if you throw cherry preserve into the mix it becomes absolutely heavenly. 

Did you know the almond is not technically a nut? The "nut" is atually a seed that comes from the pit of a drupe, which is a soft fruit like a cherry or plum. Cherry and almonds come from the same genus Prunus, this relationship must have something to do with why they taste so good together.

  

Almond Cream Pound Cake:

1 cup unsalted butter
3 cups of cake flour
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
11/2 cups heavy cream
100g (average small bag size) almonds
1 tsp bourbon vanilla
1 1/2 tsps pure almond extract

Good quality cherry preserve for the filling.

I recommend a Red Cherry preserve with a low sugar content. There are many good options available at specialty food stores, organic sections in regular supermarkets, and really excellent jars can often be found at your local farmers market.

Remove eggs and butter from the fridge so that they can warm up to room temperature, preheat oven to 350f if using an aluminium pan, and 300f if using a dark or non-stick pan.

Make the Almond cream; Bring the cream and almonds to a boil in a heavy bottom saucepan, remove from heat and let cool until it is warm, blend for two minutes. Let cool completely. Stir in the almond and vanilla extracts.

Beat the butter and sugar until white and very fluffy, approximately 10 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing just until combined after each addition. Gently fold in the flour and cream in two batches alternately. 

The important thing when making these cupcakes is not to over bake them. Keep a close eye on them near the end of the baking time, once you can touch the centre and it feels firm and springy it is done. The very surface might still be a little sticky, but it will firm up once it is removed from the oven, so do not wait until the cup cakes turn golden brown on top. Cook cupcakes for approximately 20- 25 minutes.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Cut a hollow out of the top of the cool cupcake and fill with preserves, top with rich vanilla buttercream.

 Vanilla Bean Mousseline Buttercream: 

5 egg whites

1/2 +1/8 cream of tartar

1/2 a vanilla beans worth of seeds

1+1/8 cups of sugar

1/4 cup of water
 2 cups cool, but softened unsalted butter

Whip the egg whites on high, once they start to become soft and frothy add the cream of tartar and slowly sprinkle in the the 1/4 cup of the sugar as it whips. Beat on high as you make the syrup, you can add the syrup when it forms stiff peaks.

 In a heavy bottom saucepan mix together the 3/4 cups + 1/8 cup of sugar with the 1/4 cup of water. Stir until dissolves and bring the mixture to a boil,  once it starts to boil stop stirring entirely. Let it bubble until it reaches the soft ball stage, that is once you drop a drop of the sugar syrup into a cup of ice water and it forms a soft round ball at the bottom. It will be quite hot, so be very careful with the hot sugar liquid.

Once it reaches this point it can be added to the egg whites. turn the mixer to high and add the hot syrup in a thin, steady stream. Make sure it doesn't strike the beaters or it may splash. If you don't have a stand mixer have a friend or family member help you with this part. Use a heat proof spoon to get all of the syrup out of the pan. Beat until cool. Beat in cool butter, one tablespoon at a time until your mixture is smooth. Add the vanilla bean seeds.

(Our recipe is adjusted from the delicious mousseline recipe by Rose Levy Berambaum, there is a link to her blog on the right. if you love to bake you absolutely MUST check her out. Her books are amazing, we consider her our baking guru of sorts.)