I love Valentine’s Day-inspired food. I love the heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting that my neighbors receive in the mail from family, and heart shaped cakes, and dark chocolates.
I was looking through all the beautiful choices of baked goods over at Yeast Spotting, and I stopped short at Toasted Almond Baby Cakes submitted by My Tasty Treasures, because it was noted that they tasted like Russian tea cakes. That was all I needed to hear. I make those cookies every Christmas, not only to eat…they make the kitchen smell so good because of the almonds in the cookie dough.
Remember those spongy cakes we all grew up on, shaped like a cup used for strawberry shortcake. Just for fun, I purchased a pan that makes those cakes . And, I thought this recipe would be a great as cup-shaped cakes for strawberries, as muffins are not very sweet and are firm enough to hold fruit piled with whipped cream or, if it’s breakfast time, yogurt, my personal favorite.
I changed the recipe only slightly, using real vanilla bean. If you are not making these to go with the fruit, you can make 24 baby cakes and keep in freezer for a nice breakfast treat.
Recipe (adapted from My Tasty Treasures)
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 vanilla bean scraped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/4 cups flour (I used Eagle Mills Ultra Grain)
- 1/2 cups pecans, toasted and ground
- 1 1/4 cups milk (I used organic non-fat)
- Strawberries or fruit of choice for filling (optional)
- Toasted almonds for garnish (optional)
- Powdered sugar for sprinkling (optional)
- Whip softened butter, gradually add sugar.
Add eggs one at a time, add vanilla. Mix. - In a separate bowl, mix together baking powder and salt.
Add ground pecans. (I used a magic bullet to grind almonds. Make sure you just toast first, grind to a meal-like consistency, NOT a paste.) - Alternately add flour mixture and milk to butter mixture.
- Grease muffin pans. (Don’t use paper muffin cups)
Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes. It will depend on size of your muffin. Test with toothpick.
Cool, remove from muffin tins.
This recipe makes 24 baby cakes .
I made six shortcake style cakes and 10 medium sized muffins.
For Breakfast, Serve with Yogurt
- 1 pint organic plain yogurt
- 2 tablespoon raw agave nectar (what I used for sweetener)
- Add: 1/2 vanilla bean split, 1/2 C chopped strawberries
- Garnish with toasted almond slices
Note: If you don’t have a shortcake pan, you can slice the muffins horizontally and make little layered shortcakes. When made with whole milk, each baby muffin is 190 calories. Add strawberries and non-fat yogurt and you have a dessert for under 250 calories.
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