How to make Almond Orange Cherry cupcake – The Accidental Recipe Modified

Friday 29th July 2011, Recipe 20110729

Almond Orange Cherry cupcake – an introduction

This almond orange cherry cupcake turned out much better than expected. I decide to do the recipe as an improvement over the previous version of Almond Orange Cherry Cupcake recipe instead of the cheesecake recipe so that you would have something different to try out.

 

I had decided to use the cheapest all-purpose (plain) flour in town. The good quality bread flour sells for RM6.00 (US$2) per kg and the cheapest plain flour sells for RM1.35 (USD$0.45) per kg. That is a vast price difference. The higher priced bread flour is the Brand A water absorbent flour that I had mentioned in earlier recipes. The lower priced plain flour is the Brand X that results in watery dough that I had mentioned in previous recipes. The quality really makes a difference in the handling of the dough and the amount of rising you can get out of the dough. Just a side note, the cheaper bread flour goes for RM3.30 (USD$1.10) and results in a watery dough. I would suggest that you do not waste your money purchasing such cheap bread flour but instead use the cheapest all-purpose flour and a little gluten to make it bread flour or pizza flour. The results will be very similar to using cheap bread flour but the cost will be almost a third.

 

The last time I made the almond orange cherry cupcake I had used bread flour. This time I had used plain flour because I wanted to see if plain flour could be raised with yeast. And it can! Bread flour will double in height but the plain flour rose less than double. It became a dense cake almost like the brownies which was very nice and wonderful to eat. Just to remind you from the past experiments, there are two main factors that affect how much the dough will rise and they are the water content and the protein content. High water content recipes will make the dough more like a watery gel and allow the gases produced by yeast to escape. This will result in a dense bread or cake with tiny sponge like air pockets. Higher protein content creates a larger protein network or matrix which allows for more gases to be trapped in the dough causing it to raise more. This will result in larger sponge like air pockets. If you want your dough to be dense like heavy chocolate brownies use more water and or lower protein content flour. If you want the dough to rise a lot and be light and airy use less water and or higher protein content flour.

 

I made this recipe taste like a cake by adding a little milk powder, an egg and some vanilla. I took the cupcakes to my office meeting and all eight of us enjoyed every one of the cupcakes. So that means this was a pretty good recipe and it is possible to make cakes with yeast instead of baking powder or baking soda.

 

Here is the recipe.

 

Almond Orange Cherry Cupcake Recipe

 

Almond Orange Cherry Cupcake Recipe
Item	Ingredients	Percentage	Weight	Weight
		(%)	(g)	oz.
Sponge
1	Plain Flour	100	400	14.08
2	Instant Dry Yeast	2	8	0.28
3	Sugar	15	60	2.11
4	Sunkist	16	64	2.25
5	Water, Cold	80	320	11.26
After 4 hour fermentation
Additives
6	Salt	1	4	0.14
7	Vanilla	2	8	0.28
8	Egg	15	60	2.11
9	milk powder	2	8	0.28
10	Dried Cherries	50	200	7.04
11	Almond Powder	30	120	4.22
12	Butter	20	80	2.82

 

 

Here is the butter icing recipe

Butter Icing
Item	Ingredients	Percentage	Weight	Weight
		(%)	(g)	oz.
1	Icing Sugar	100	150	5.28
2	Salted Butter	20	30	1.06
3	Water + Vanilla	10	15	0.53
4	Glucose	10	15	0.53

 

Photos of the Almond Orange Cherry cupcake process – Sponge & Additives Method

 

Weigh all the sponge ingredients, except water, and ensure the ingredients are uniformly mixed and evenly distributed with the flour.

 

 

Add the water in one go.

 

 

Mix well, the dough will be watery. Leave aside for two hours for it to ferment and the yeast to multiply.

 

 

In the meantime chop up the cherries into large and small pieces. The small pieces will ensure that every part of the cupcake will have some cherry and the large pieces will ensure there are chewable pieces of cherry in every cupcake.

 

 

After two hours of fermenting you will notice that water is oozing out of the dough. This is because we are using the cheapest flour available. Don’t worry about it.

 

 

Add all the additives and mix well. You will notice that the dough will ‘dry up’ and I would suspect that this is due to the almond powder and milk powder added.

 

 

I measured about 55g (2 oz) into each paper cup. I had used the grease paper cup that you can purchase at the baking stores. Unfortunately, since the dough was very watery it flattened down and spread open the cupcakes. I should have baked watery dough in a baking tray – you try and then learn.

 

 

I sprinkled some almond chips on top of each cupcake and allowed the dough to rise further by leaving it aside for another two hours.

 

 

In the meantime I mixed the butter and icing sugar until it was smoother. Then I added the water + vanilla. How much vanilla you use is up to you. I had about 4 drops of vanilla essence then added water to make 15g. Mix again. Then I added the glucose. Since I knew that glucose is used in making sugar syrup as it helps the sugar to dissolve and prevents it from crystallizing, I decided to try it here. When you first mix in a plastic bowl you can feel through the spoon and hear the sound as if sand is being mixed and scrapping along the sides of the bowl. When you add the glycerine the sound changes as if the its very fine sand, actually sugar. Keep the icing in the fridge.

 

 

The cupcakes were baked for 35 minutes at 210C (410F) and I think 30 minutes would have been sufficient. Allow it to cool. There was a smell and I suspected that the paper cups were giving out a smell during baking. As usual, I panicked as I was going to take these cupcake to the meeting. I added another 4 drops of vanilla essence into the icing to mask the smell of the cupcakes. That is when I discovered that the more vanilla you add to the butter icing the tastier it becomes. Did you know that the vanilla essence I was using was bitter in taste?

 

 

The next day, the funny smell from the cupcakes was not present so I guess that leaving the cupcakes overnight allowed the smell to escape. I iced the cupcakes.

 

 

They cupcakes were delicious. I would suggest that you try them without the icing and if you are going to use icing then lower the sugar content in the dough from 15% to 10% as there is a lot of sugar in the icing. But they were simply delicious.

 

This article “How to make Almond Orange Cherry cupcake” was researched and written by Peter Achutha