When Irelands Wedding Journal approached me about creating a healthy wedding cupcake recipe for their health and fitness month, I couldn’t wait to get cracking some eggs and bake those suckers!  Cherry Bakewell is a flavour I have always adored, I’m also one of those weirdo’s that loves marzipan – I know we are few and far between!  So when Clare contacted me I was instantly drawn to creating a cupcake that had all the flavours of cherry bakewell but less of the sugar and fat attached.  I used Keen Nutrition as a full substitute for butter creating a beautiful sticky and nutty, but still light, sponge.  I cut the sugar and used almond milk as a nuttier substitute to milk and abolished sugary and deathly sweet butter icing and instead opted for a light cream cheese topping.  Here is the recipe and a few pics to inspire!  Happy baking 🙂

Almond Cherry Bakewell Cheesecake Cupcakes 

Ingredients

Makes 20 cupcakes

115g/4oz Keen almond smooth nut butter at room temperature

85g/3oz golden caster sugar

115g/4oz self raising flour, sifted

2 medium eggs

120mls almond milk

½ tsp almond essence

Quick cherry compote filling

1 tin cherries in light syrup, stoned (425g)

2 tbsp maple syrup, honey or Agave sryup

1 tsp lemon juice (jif is fine)

3-4 tbsp water

1 tsp cornflour

Cream cheese icing

500g light cream cheese

4-8 tbsp icing sugar, depending how sweet you like it

swirl of cherry compote

toasted flaked almonds to decorate

Method

Preheat oven to 170°C.  Line your muffin trays with cupcake liners.  Empty the contents of the cherry tin into a heavy based pot and bring to the boil.  Stir the cherries and moosh them up a bit so there are no whole pieces.  Reduce to a simmer and add the lemon juice and syrup and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes.  Mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the cherries, it will start to thicken immediately.  Thin gradually with the water until you get a syrupy consistency, it will set a little thicker as it cools too.  Set aside to cool.  Meanwhile beat the nut butter in a large baking bowl for about 3 minutes until loosened. Beat in the almond essence.  Add the sugar and beat for a further 1 – 2 minutes.  Beat in the eggs one by one.  The mixture will still be quite thick.  Beat in the almond milk and fold in the sifted flour.  Fill the cupcake liners half way and bake for about 20-25 minutes until they spring back when pressed.  The cupcakes will be darker than normal because of the nut butter.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.  When cool, scoop out a piece from the center (a melon baller would be great for this, I used a measuring spoon tsp size).  Set the piece of sponge aside, take a little compote and spoon into the cupcake (not too full) then replace the scooped out sponge.  Repeat for the others, this is tedious but worth it!  Leave a little compote for later. For the topping, beat the cream cheese to loosen and add icing sugar until you get desired sweetness.  Swirl in about 3 tbsp of the leftover compote so you get a marbled effect.  You can apply the icing however you like, it’s quite soft to pipe but it helps with the marbling of the cherry compote.  Decorate with toasted flaked almonds (toast in a pan over a medium heat but keep an eye on them!) and place a cherry on top, I used glace but Morello or fresh would work great too.