SHF, You Drive Me Nuts !

September 18, 2008

Do you remember the time when I was dreaming to have a pestle ?

This time is over ! Now, I have an electric grinder. Even better ! I’ve tried cardamom, poppy seeds, almonds, walnuts… Almost everything !

Then, Fanny of Foodbeam announced at the beginning of this month, SHF is ‘cupcake’.

I had many ideas and made different attempts - not always successful- but I definitely wanted to make cupcakes with nuts !

So I choosed pistachio cupcakes with a chocolate icing. To be honest they didn’t come out how I wanted. Useless to say, I’m not used of making cupcakes. And I should practice more for topping, icing, frosting or whatever you call it !

Then I thought to try coffee cupcakes. So I bought coffee beans. Beautiful. The color, the regular shape and the aroma ! Such a pleasure to smell this exhilarating flavour ! And once ground the smell is even more intense…

Paprika and I are big tea drinkers, so at home, you never smell coffee in the morning nor after lunch. Anyway, I like coffee and this freshly ground coffee was so tempting I had first to drink a cup of coffee and then I was ready to prepare cupcakes !

I associated walnuts to these ones and simply topped them with a whipped crème fraîche to get a light crème chantilly.

Both recipes are very similar, just different flavours.

Pistachio Cupcakes (makes 6 big cupcakes)

Preheat oven to 175°C // In a large bowl mix flour, ground pistachio and baking powder // In an other bowl whip eggs and sugar, then add melted butter // Stir batter into mixed flour and mix thoroughly // Add milk and keep on mixing until smooth // Fill cupcakes and bake for 30 minutes // Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack // In a pan, melt chocolate on low fire // Add icing sugar and stir thoroughly // Spread or pipe melted chocolate on top of completely cool cupcakes.

Printable recipe Pistachio Cupcakes

Coffee Cupcakes (makes 6)

Preheat oven to 175°C // In a large bowl mix flour, walnuts and baking powder // In an other bowl whip eggs and sugar, then add melted butter // Stir batter into mixed flour and mix thoroughly // Add coffee and keep on mixing until smooth // Fill cupcakes and bake for 30 minutes // Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack // In a large bowl, whip crème fraîche and icing sugar until a light texture (crème chantilly) // Refrigerate for half an hour // Then pipe it on top of cupcakes

Printable recipe Coffee Cupcakes

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