Mini Maple Cupcakes With A Berry Surprise

So much to give thanks for.

A little flavor goes a long way. These little cupcakes are good for small kids, and those with a delicate appetite (or on a diet.) This recipe makes 2 dozen. You know its going to be good when it takes three bowls.

Ingredients                              
1 cup all -purpose flour                      2 oz each of fresh blueberries,
1 tsp baking powder                           blackberries, raspberries,
1/4 tsp salt                                           cranberries      

Tin for 24 mini cupcakes.

1/3 c whole milk
1/2 tsp maple flavor
3/4 stick (6 tbs) softened butter
1/2 c plus 1 tbs sugar
1 large egg         
                                                
 You will need cupcake liners, too. There many festive ones this time of year.

For glaze        
                      
1/2 c powdered sugar
3 tbs milk
food coloring of your choice

Instructions

Put the oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups with liners.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Stir together milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about four minutes. Add egg and beat until just combined. Reduce speed to low, then add flour and milk mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour and mixing until just combined. Divide batter among muffin tins, til half full. Place a berry into the center of the cup; I alternate one row of each to keep track. Then be sure to cover the berries with the same amount of batter. Bake until the  tops are pale golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in centers comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Invert cupcakes onto a rack and cool completely.
For glaze, mix milk and powdered sugar until there are no lumps. If you desire colors like mine, start with green. Drip one third of the glaze in a diagonal pattern over cupcakes. Then add red, and mix. Drip another third of the glaze in a diagonal pattern over cupcakes. Add yellow, and mix. Drip the remaining glaze over the cupcakes. The berries in the middle are a nice surprise. These go well with tea.

Garden Tip

This is actually leafy dirt.

Here is our leaf mulch heap. We have large fruitless mulberry trees, a huge maple, and volunteer cottonwoods and some kind of volunteer elm. I know, I should find out its name.
So, in the summertime, lots of shade, in the autumn, lot of leaves to mulch. We are truly not fancy mulchers, obviously.  But our leaf pile of about five years has biodegraded into a good base for a walled-in garden we haven't used for awhile. Got to start somewhere reclaiming the wilderness.