Saffron Cupcakes With Orange Buttercream

This time I made cupcakes and baked some extra so that the half of the cupcakes can be frozen. If you do not want to freeze: use half of the recipe for cupcakes.
If you do not want to freeze but want to make them all 16, then double the recipe for the buttercream.

Cupcakes:
50 g almond flour
12 to 15 saffron threads (Moroccan or Spanish)
250 gr unsalted soft butter
6 eggs
Pinch of salt
100 g of sugar
2 tbsp honey
200 g self-rising flour
1/2 bag of baking powder (8 g)
1 orange
(This is for 16 cupcakes)

Simple syrup and orange chips:
1 orange
50 g sugar
100 ml of water
Rum, vodka, cognac or water of your choice
Icing sugar

Garnish (for 8 cupcakes)
150 g powdered sugar
150 unsalted soft butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon orange juice
1/2 teaspoon orange grater
(+ a drop of orange/yellow dye)
Almond shavings

Tools:
Mixer
Bowl
Grater
Sieve
Paper cupcake & tins
Baking pan for the paper tins
Oven
Orange press
Teaspoon
Tablespoon
Baking paper

Soak the saffron threads in some hot water.
Grate the the orange on a fine grater and add a teaspoon of sugar to the orange zest. Squeeze the orange and save the juice for the cupcakes and the buttercream.
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Mix 200 g. Self-rising flour with half a bag of baking powder (8 g). Beat the butter creamy with a hand or stand mixer and add the sugar, a pinch of salt and the honey, and beat until a creamy mixture. Now add the eggs one by one, let the dough absorb the egg completely before adding a new one, and mix until everything is completely absorbed. Add to this airy mixture the almond flour, the soaked saffron with water, two tablespoons of orange juice and 1 tsp orange zest and mix again. Then gradually add the sifted flour and mix until everything is well mixed. Fill the in paper cupcake tins to 2/3 with batter and bake the cupcakes in the middle of the oven in 20 to 25 minutes until done.

For this, peel an orange with a peeler. Cut nice strips of the peels with a knife and place them in a pan with a thick bottom with 50 grams of sugar and 100 ml of water and boil them until the peels turn a little glassy. Turn off the heat and scoop the skins out of the sugar syrup with a skimmer. Drain and place on baking paper. Sprinkle a thick layer of icing sugar and let it dry for a few hours. Stir occasionally.

Allow the sugar syrup from the orange chips to cool down to around 80 ° to prevent the syrup from splattering and causing burns. Mix the cooled sugar syrup with approximately 50 ml of rum, cognac, vodka or water. If you use water you have to bring the syrup back to the boil for half a minute. The simple syrup should not be too thick you should be able to use it in a spray bottle, add extra rum, cognac, vodka or water if necessary. Once the syrup has completely cooled, put it in a spray bottle. Spray the cupcakes as soon as they have cooled with the simple syrup.

As a garnish you can use them unroasted or roasted to your taste. To roast, place them in a dry frying pan on a low heat source. Keep the almonds in motion until they are the right color. Remove them from the heat source and put them immediately in a dish, do not use a plastic one, and let cool.

Put the soft butter in a bowl and mix until light and fluffy. Then slowly add the icing sugar and mix until you have a nice cream. Finally add the orange juice and vanilla. Option: Add a drop of orange / yellow dye to the buttercream if you want a nice orange color and mix everything well with the mixer at medium speed. Put the cream in a piping bag and make swirls on the cupcakes, sprinkle some almond shavings on top and finish with some candied orange peel.

Cupcakes are easy to freeze. Buttercream can be frozen, but will sometimes shift when thawing, thawing in the refrigerator.