Monday Munchies: Chocolate cashew cupcakes with cream cheese and orange marmalade icing by Alma's Cupcakes!

Hello everyone! How's the week starting? I hope that at the worst, as good as mine is!

This week is my b-day week, so I've decided to pamper myself as much as possible! And to start the week right, I've been to the Spa this morning where I got a Japanese treatment and a full body massage... bliss!

And to share a little bit of goodness with you all, I'm sharing a super yummy cupcake recipe as my Monday Munchies entry of this week!

As usual as of late, this recipe is taken from Alma's Cupcakes blog: Objetivo: Cupcake Perfecto, but it's a bit of a mix of two of her recipes.

Chocolate & cashews cupcakes with cream cheese & orange marmalade icing!

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

- 100 gr white sugar

- 100 gr unsalter butter

- 100 gr regular flour

- 2 eggs

- 3 tablespoons cocoa

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 1 tablespoon milk

- 2 tablespoon crushed cashews

Method:

- Preheat the oven at 180ºC (350ºF) and put the cupcake liners in the mold. Cream sugar and butter until white and fluffy. Shift the cocoa, flour and baking podwer all together and add to the butter and sugar mix, folding carefully, add the milk and mix till well combined.

- Once well mixed, add the crushed cashews and fold in. Fill the liners up to 2/3 only and bake for about 20 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

For the cream cheese & orange marmalade icing (I used Alma's recipe for the cream cheese icing for her Red Velvet cupcakes, just adding the marmalade):

Ingredients:

- 2 tablespoons orange marmalade

- 125 gr cream cheese (the full fat version, Philadelphia style)

- 60 gr unsalted butter (room temperature).

- 300 gr icing sugar

Method:

- Mix the icing sugar with the butter (be careful, if doing it by KitchenAid or similar, cover it first). Once it's well mixed, add the cream cheese and mix till white & creamy, don't overmix it or it will get melty. Then mix the orange marmalade and fold it in. I'd recommend mixing only one tablespoon in two times, so it won't change the consistency of the icing too much. You can pipe the icing with a pastry bag or with a spoon for a more rustic look.

- You can decorate with some cute sprinkles, or if you don't have any, add a cashew on top of each cupcake as I did!

- Enjoy! Yum, yum!