Similar to pumpkin, butternut usually features in savoury dishes, however because of its slight sweetness and nutty flavour I thought it might be nice in baking, like carrot, and it was! Here is the resulting recipe.
Ingredients
| ½ cup | Golden syrup |
| ½ cup | Brown sugar |
| 1 tsp | Vanilla essence/extract |
| ¼ cup | Canola oil, or use another neutral oil, eg. soyabean, grapeseed, macadamia |
| 3 | Eggs, beaten |
| 1 tsp | Mixed spice |
| 2 cups | Almond meal, or almond flour or ground almonds |
| 1 ½ tsp | Baking powder, gluten-free |
| 2 ½ cups | Butternut pumpkin, grated, about 300g |
| 1 | Lemon, finely grated zest, or use an orange |
| ½ cup | Dried apricots, chopped |
Creme fraiche icing
| 150 g | Creme fraiche |
| ¼ cup | Gluten-free icing sugar |
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Directions
- Heat oven to 180C fan-bake. Line a medium 12-pan muffin pan with paper cases.
- Place all ingredients, except dried apricots, in a food processor and blend until well combined. Transfer to a bowl and stir in dried apricots.
- If you don't have a food processor, simply mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until well combined (you don't have to worry about over-mixing the muffin batter as there is no gluten in it).
- Spoon mixture into paper cases, filling to the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.
- Stand a few minutes before turning out. Leave to cool completely before icing.
- To make icing, mix creme fraiche with icing sugar and spread over cupcakes
Nadia recommends:The cupcakes will keep in the fridge for a week. They freeze well too.
