burnt almond cupcakes

i first discovered this concept when james brought home a box of unwanted pastries he found; a few were bites of light, fluffy cake with light, fluffy frosting, stuffed with creamy pudding and covered with sweet, crunchy almond slivers. i didn't expect to encounter them again, until a few months later when i saw an item with a similar description on a restaurant menu and had to give it a try. it was called burnt almond torte.

i didn't understand the name because the almonds didn't seem burnt at all, or even heavily toasted. that is, until i tried to make it myself. i think a more accurate name would be "you will burn the almonds torte". the almonds ended up a little smokier than i intended and the cake itself wasn't the best ever, but it was pretty good for a first try (and a vegan one, at that).

anyway, here is how my cupcakes worked: i used the white cupcake recipe from vegan cupcakes take over the world, poked a hole in them and piped in some simple custard made from soy milk. then we spread them with a layer of a basic oil and powdered sugar frosting (because i wasn't feeling ambitious enough to really recreate the fluffy frosting on the original) and a sprinkling of almond slices coated with melted sugar (this was the hard part. you have to stir the almonds in over the heat or the syrup will solidify instantly, which we learned the hard way).

incidentally, i learned while researching this recipe that a prantl's, a bakery in pittsburgh is famous for this type of cake. who knows, maybe that was where my original inspiration came from.