Burnt almond cupcakes

Someone once asked me if I ever get bored of baking the same things. Being back in the concrete jungle that is Silicon Valley, it's a bit hard to bake French pastries, or larger cakes that I'm accustomed to. Here I feed the masses. And as much as I'd like a 9-inch cake sitting on my desk, it creates quite a mess when serving. That's why I default to muffins, cookies, cupcakes, and smaller self-serve tasty treats.

But yes, it does get a bit redundant. My solution however is to take a basic recipe and well, though I'm quite embarrassed to quote Emeril, "kick it up a notch." My latest endeavor has been to recreate a burnt almond cake, in the form of cupcakes. To be honest I don't really know what burnt almond cake is, and after spending 20 minutes on the Internet trying to find out where it originates from with no success, I decided to make what I thought burnt almond cake should be.

A couple recipes I found online suggested making caramel and then pulverizing it in a food processer. Quite frankly, I can't be bothered to burn myself making caramel toffee if it's just going to be smashed to bits later. I figured a basic genoise with buttercream and toasted almonds should do the trick. And where's the notch kicking, you ask? Dulce de leche my friends. Sweet caramel goodness.

The cupcakes were filled with dulce de leche and topped with buttercream and toasted almonds tossed in powdered sugar. My buttercream was a bit off since my sugar wasn't cooked enough, but it still tasted okay. I would have to rate them as a semi-success, and next time I might try for a different topping.