Almond and Apple Cupcakes

I love almonds, and I also like apples. Those green, juicy, crunchy Granny Smith's apples, that make you salivate for more. When I was just 7 or 8 years old, I was always on the look out for those big, gigantic red apples which were only available from Singapore. At that time, big, gigantic Fuji like apples were a rare find in Malaysia, what else in Malacca. My siblings and I were fighting over those rare apples every time our Singaporean uncle gave them to our father. But there were no apples, instead it was only an apple (to tell you the truth)..hahaaha. So, everyone would fight for a slice of THE apple. I would laugh every time I thought about it. There is an old saying, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". So my love affair with apples would always be there even if I am more into green apples instead of red now. Back to the cupcakes, I have invented this recipe, just to use my extra ground almonds and darling green apples. I have intended to put just chuncks of green apples, so that I can bite into pieces of apples. Verdict- nice cupcakes with wonderful tastes, we have the sweetness of almonds and the raw sour apples all combined together. Have a try for this recipe....

Ingredients

1 green apple ( cut into chunks, or big dice)

1/2- 3/4 cup of unsalted butter

4 eggs

3/4 cup of brown sugar ( you can put less sugar as almonds are quite sweet)

1 tsp of vanilla

1 tsp of salt

1/2 cup of fresh milk -squeezed with 1 tsp of fresh lemon juice ( let is set for about 2 mins)

1-2 tsp of freshly grated lemon skins

1/4 to 1/2 cup of ground almond

1 to 1 and 1/2 cup of plain flour or cake flour (cake flour will give you fine texture) -

depending on the amount of ground almond that you use.

1 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of soda of bicarbonate

##2-3 tbs of fresh milk (extra)

How

# Pre heat your oven 120C

1) Cream the butter and sugar (it will take you a good 7-8 mins)

2) Put the eggs into the batter, one by one. Put in vanilla

3) Sift together flour, baking powder and soda.

4) Now put in the sifted flour into the batter, followed by milk, mix well.

5) Put in salt. Put in ground almond. Put in grated lemon skins.

6) Lastly, put in extra milk (if you intend to put it)

7) Put cupcake cases into muffin pan.

8) Spoon batter into cupcake cases.

9) Put chunks of apples on top of the cupcakes batter.

10) Bake them, for about 20 mins, check if they are ready by inserting a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean, your cupcakes are ready...

Have a good apple cupcake, everyone.....