Cherry Surprise Honey Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising
• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup extra light olive oil, do not use extra virgin!
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup 2% or whole milk, ,or if using sugar use 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup honey, or 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 cups Cherry Pie Filling, You can also use fresh berries

Instructions

How to Make the Honey Vanilla Cupcakes:

Preheat Oven to 350˚F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together your liquid ingredients (3/4 cup olive oil, 1 cup honey, 4 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, 3/4 cup milk) for 1 minute on high or until well blended.

In a separate large bowl, whisk together: 1 3/4 cups cake flour, 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1 Tbsp baking powder, 3/4 tsp salt.

Fold the dry ingredients into your wet ingredients 1/3 at a time and Blend until just combined. The batter should still be a little lumpy.

Use an ice cream scoop to transfer batter into the lined cupcake pan. Fill each cupcake about 2/3 of the way up (a full ice cream scoop). Bake at 350˚F for 15 -18 min or until a toothpick comes out clean and tops are starting to turn golden.

Filling the Cupcakes:

Once the cupcakes are cooled to room temp, you’re ready to fill them.This can be done one of two ways, cut out a piece of cupcake from the center and stuff with cherries, or you can put the cherries into a piping bag with an opening that is wide enough for the cherries to go through. You need something with a firm tip (I just used a coupler on the end) to push inside the cupcake (so a ziploc won’t work; been there, failed at that).

Use a paring knife to slice an “X” into the top of your cupcake going about 1/2 way into the cupcake. Put the tip of your icing bag into the X and squeeze in the filling until your piping tip is pushed out.

I frosted the Cupcakes with the “Cupcake Frosting Recipe” using my WILTON 1M Star Tip to top these beauties. It’s a great frosting; firm enough to add a little color and it holds its form really well and stays good at room temp for a few hours making it ideal for a party. 4. Use the back of a spoon to make a little well on top of the cupcake, then place a cherry on top of each cupcake (if desired), you can omit the cherry on the top to make it a real cherry surprise. 😉