Gluten-free cupcakes with almond flavour

These cupcakes are milk-free, egg-free and gluten-free.

They are originally called Runeberg´s cakes since they were the favourite pastry of Runeberg whom was a famous poet in Finland. He liked to have a drink of punch in the morning and he ate this cake with his morning drink; he might have been a drunk.

This cake is not the prettiest you will ever see, but it truly is very tasty. I used to love these cakes when I was younger, and could make these every day after school for weeks; very unusual for someone like me whom does not love all things sweet.

You can moisten these with liquor, but it is not necessary, you can just use some sugar water and use some almond extract in the batter. I chose Disaronno for moistening, since I like the taste of it, punch is another alternative for moistening and it might be more traditional.

I found some extra fine sugar at the store, it should be good for baking and make everything a bit fluffier. This batter truly was very fluffy and just like a regular batter with eggs and wheat flour, I don´t know what caused it, but I am happy it happened. The other reason might be that I used Orgran No Egg, I have never tried it before, so I don´t know if it was the sugar, the no-egg or something else. The third reason might be the fact that you have to mix together the sugar and the fat in these first.

Almond cupcakes

This will make 16 cupcakes

-150g margarine, like earth balance, or oil

-1 1/2 dl of sugar

- 2 tbls of dark syrup

-1 tsp of ready made gingerbread spice mix, or half a tsp of cinnamon and half a tsp of crushed cloves

-1 tsp of cardamom

- 2 tsp of no-egg mixed with 4 tbls of water

-1 1/2 dl soy milk or soy cream

-80 g of ground blanched almonds

- 3 dl of quinoa flour or all purpose flour if you don´t need to use gluten-free flours

- 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder

- some punch or Disaronno or some sugar water for moistening, if you don´t use any kind of alcohol, you might want to use bitter almond extract, just one drop in your batter should be enough since it is really strong. If you can´t find almond extract and don´t want to use alcohol in these just use 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

- 1 dl of raspberry jam and 1 dl of confectioner´s sugar and 1 tsp of water

Preheat your oven to 175 Celcius.

Start by mixing your no-egg mixture in a bowl with the water and leave it to be. Mix your margarine with your sugar, you have to mix quite heavily for about 5 min. Then add your spices, syrup, ground almonds, bitter almond extract, no-egg mixture and milk. Mix your baking powder into your flour and then add it into the batter, mix everything together, put your batter into cupcake papers, leave some room for it to rise and then bake them in the oven.

If you used regular all-purpose flour they will take 20-25 minutes to bake, quinoa flour will take longer, something like 40-50 minutes, watch it from time to time and try putting a toothpick into the middle of one of those cakes, if nothing sticks they are ready.

After they have cooled down you should mix the confectioner´s sugar with one teaspoon of water until you have a thick paste, you will need something to frost these with, I used a pastry bag. First brush your cakes with either just plain punch or Disaronno, or mix them with water half and half, then brush, or just mix water with sugar and then brush them with that. After that press a hole into the middle of your cake, put some jelly into the hole and then using a pastry bag frost a circle around the jelly. I used St.Dalfour raspberry jelly, I think that they make the best jellies there is just no comparison with other brands; it is thick with a lot of substance and they don´t add any sugar.

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