I'm making the "Moist Walnut Cupcakes" from Cupcakes by Susanna Tee. It is appropriately named.
This recipe utilizes the amazing food processor. Essentially you just dump all the ingredients into it and blend it together, then put the batter into cupcake liners.
The Ingredients
- 3/4 cup walnuts
- 4 tbsp butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated or superfine sugar
- grated rind of 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 cup self-rising flour
- 2 eggs
The Process
If you're using granulated sugar, put your half cup into the food processor. Make sure to cover any openings to prevent a powder cloud in your kitchen; you should keep any opening covered each time you blend during this recipe to keep your kitchen clean (or at least cleaner!). I used a simple dish cloth. Blend for a minute or a little more.
Then add the walnuts and blend them until they're finely ground. Make sure you don't overblend them, or you'll end up with a big oil-y mess. If you're using already chopped walnuts like I did, it shouldn't take too much time; you should just use a pulsating blend instead of a constant one, like earlier.
If you're using superfine sugar, only blend the walnuts.
Grind the lemon rind, and cut the butter into small pieces. You should cut them into smaller pieces than I did! (I'll explain later.)
Now add all the remaining ingredients (including the superfine sugar, if using) to the food processor. Blend away until everything is incorporated.
Preheat your oven to 375F.
Place mini cupcake liners into a mini muffin pan, then spoon the batter into them. I used an old coffee scoop, but a regular small spoon would work just fine as well.
The actual recipe says to use regular sized cupcake liners, but I obviously decided to ignore this and do my own thing. If you opt to use regular ones, you should probably preheat the oven earlier as it won't take you so long to spoon in the batter.
Bake the cupcakes until golden-brown. This was about 9 minutes for me.
(If you're making regular sized cupcakes, the recipe says it should be 20 minutes.)
Remove the cupcakes from the liner. If some of your cupcakes rose and overflowed a little bit, sticking to the sides, just use a knife to gently separate the cupcake from the tin, or shimmy a fork underneath the bottom of the liner and gently lift the cupcake out. Place them on a rack to cool.
I tried the cupcakes, and they tasted sweet enough to me to not need icing. So I didn't make any. In case you didn't deduct that fact.
Cuddle your little cupcakes, because they are just too cute, and soon will be all grown up!
Or in your belly.
Some Notes
This made 32 mini cupcakes. The recipe says it should make 12 regular sized, but I think that's bull. Those would be some shallow cupcakes.
If I Could Do It Again....
With the size I cut the butter, it didn't actually completely completely blend into the batter when I processed it. There were still teeny tiny chunks in some areas that I discovered while spooning the batter into the liners, which I then had to manually mix in as best as I could. Cutting smaller pieces would easily prevent this.
The Final Verdict
This recipe was super duper easy, and the end product was tasty - a win-win!! I'll definitely be making these in the future.
You could easily fancy it up a bit by making a simple frosting (I'd suggest just rinsing out your food processor and then blending together a little cream cheese and sugar) and then garnishing the top with some walnuts.
This recipe also seems like it'd be very easy to double or triple; the amount of ingredients would still be easily small enough for a food processor to handle.
Because it's so simple, these could be a great life-saver if you're running out of time and need to make a dessert.
Or you could make it for a home or office snack.
Or you could use these for a teeny dessert; it'd especially pack well for lunch without icing.
Or it'd just be a great recipe if you have just a little spare time on your hands and want to bake; I personally found it very relaxing since it was just so easy.
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