Makes 8-12 depending on size
Ingredients
125g butter, softened (the
softened butter should be easy to cut through)
1/3 cup of sugar (70g)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup of spelt or gluten free
flour
175ml mandarin juice- zest them
first if you can using a micro plane-for me this was 4 mandarins- plus you need
1 extra mandarin (squeezed) for the icing
Method
Preheat oven to 180 C
In a medium bowl with a hand
beater, cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Then one at a
time your eggs. Continue beating until eggs are incorporated. Sift your flour,
and baking powder into the butter mix, then zest and juice and fold into until
combined, make sure there are no lumps, but don’t overmix. Spoon into 8- 12
holed greased or lined muffin tin and bake for 12-15 minutes. I use a silicone
one then they just pop out.
Leave in tin to cool for 5
minutes and then turn out and leave to cool completely on a cake rack. Ice with
your favourite icing when cool.
I used the juice of one mandarin
with about ¼ cup or so of icing sugar and a heaped tsp of soft butter until you
get a reasonably thick icing. Feel free to color with food coloring to make it
orange- 2 drops yellow and 1 drop red. Sprinkles optional!
If you don’t want to ice you
could add in some chocolate chips into the batter or on top for Jaffa cupcakes.
You could swap mandarin for orange, lemon or lime.
