Olive oil cupcakes with buttercream and fresh figs are slightly sweet from the buttercream and savory from the olive oil – the best golden birthday treat!

This is going to be a long post today, but trust me it’s worth it. Or if you’re really just here for the olive oil cupcakes, feel free to skip down to the recipe at the end!

Last Sunday was my 28th birthday – my golden birthday. Back in May, Pat asked what I wanted to do to celebrate; and after I suggested going to dinner, he suggested that we should go to Milwaukee for the weekend. I happily obliged. And that was all I knew – we were going to MKE and he had a surprise planned.

We weren’t leaving until Saturday morning, so we decided to meet up for a drink at Drumbar after work on Friday to get the birthday weekend started. When I arrived, one of my best friends (who lives in Seattle!) was there waiting for me! I immediately started crying and she said that she was here to surprise me for my birthday and we were going to have a girls weekend in the city. AWESOME. I was so happy to see her and couldn’t believe how sneaky Pat was in planning!

Pat then called and told me that he had made Bridget and I reservations for dinner, but that we should stop by this bar to say hi to him and his brother on our way. Again, I happily obliged not knowing that there was an even bigger surprise coming. We get to the bar and there were tons of people waiting for me – both of my sisters from out of town, friends from Minnesota, Milwaukee, Omaha, the suburbs and the city, Pat’s family, friends from work. Seriously there were SO many people there; I was completely blown away. Totally shocked. And incredibly humbled.

The celebrations continued all weekend long and I just cannot believe how incredibly blessed I am to have such wonderful people in my life. THANK YOU. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

It’s kinda crazy to believe that I’m 28. Damn, where has the time gone?! 24, 25, and 26 didn’t seem like all that much and then 27 came and in the blink of an eye, I’m 28!

27 was a really good year. I finally felt like I was in a routine and just living. Living and being happy and enjoying life. The past few years have been totally crazy – between Pat and I getting married (twice, in the same year … if you don’t know the story, just ask!), buying and then totally renovating our condo, and losing a parent – 25 and 25 were a whirlwind. But 27, 27 was good.

1. I challenged myself to get out and meet more people. After a few good friends moved away from Chicago, I was missing out on good female relationships. So with some nudging, I put myself out there (oh hi Bumble BFF!) and made some new girlfriends.
2. I started this blog and am so proud of myself for all of the work I’ve put into it and how much it has grown over the past year. If you want to see for yourself, just go back and look through the pictures on this post – yikes. I mean, they are delicious but boy those pictures are bad.
3. I joined the most supportive group of bloggers and am in awe of the wealth of knowledge and level of camaraderie within the BGB Community. Thank you!
4. I traveled. A lot. We went to Memphis for Pat’s birthday, spent a few weekends in Milwaukee visiting college friends. I was finally able to visit my little sister in Colorado in the spring. We took a few trips to Minnesota for my mom’s birthday, Christmas, a housewarming party, and the 4th of July. We got out of the city and spent a long weekend this summer in Lake Geneva. And we are headed to Indianapolis for Labor Day weekend.

Oh and I ate a LOT of good food, which this leads me to these gorgeous cupcakes! Ahh I love them. They are olive oil cupcakes with honey buttercream and fresh figs. Yuuuuuup, we’re gettin’ after it today. Now, let me say that again OLIVE OIL CUPCAKES WITH HONEY BUTTERCREAM AND FRESH FIGS.

The cupcake recipe was adapted from this Molly Yeh recipe. And if you don’t already follow her, you need to. She is a very comical writer and her cakes are incredible; my tahini cake was based on one of her recipes. The honey buttercream is a pretty standard buttercream recipe – just with a little honey creamed in. And the figs… let’s not forget about the figs! I adore figs and buy/eat as many as I can during fig season each year. There’s nothing fancy about today’s figs, just sliced and placed on top of the cupcake!

These Olive Oil Cupcakes with Honey Buttercream and Fresh Figs will make you wish it was your birthday! Let me know if you make these or any of my recipes by posting a picture on social media and using the hashtag #imhungrybynature!

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Olive Oil Cupcakes with Honey Buttercream and Fresh Figs

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• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins
• Total Time: 50 mins
• Yield: 12 cupcakes 1x
• Category: dessert
• Method: Oven

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Description

Olive oil cupcakes with buttercream and fresh figs are slightly sweet from the buttercream and savory from the olive oil – the best golden birthday treat!

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Ingredients

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For the cupcakes:

• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (I prefer Califia Farms!)
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the honey buttercream:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 – 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 Tablespoon almond milk

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Instructions

For the cupcakes:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 cupcake tins with cupcake liners and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the almond meal, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, olive oil, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Pour the batter into the cupcake tins, filling them up halfway, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean; begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes.
3. Let cool on a rack for 5 minutes and then remove to the rack and cool completely.

For the honey buttercream:

1. Cream together butter and honey.
2. Add half of the powdered sugar and mix on low speed until the sugar is incorporated. Then increase speed to medium and beat until creamy.
3. Add last cup of powdered sugar, mixing on low speed at first and then on higher speed until creamy – about 2 minutes more.
4. Add almond milk and mix once more.
5. Check your consistency – feel free to add a little more powdered sugar or almond milk if necessary.

Assembly:

1. Using a piping bag, pipe the buttercream on top of the cupcakes and top with a fresh fig!

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Notes

The olive oil cupcakes were adapted from Molly Yeh’s olive oil cupcakes with berry buttercream recipe.

Keywords: cake, cupcakes, fig, birthday