Saffron almond pistachio cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Line the standard muffin pan with the paper liners.
In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients - flour, sugar and baking powder, baking soda.
Stir saffron strands in warm milk and set aside.
In another bowl whisk eggs, butter and milk, until fluffy.
Gently fold the wet ingredients in the dry ingredients to make smooth batter.
Divide the batter into three bowls.
To make Saffron cupcakes, add orange zest and saffron diluted in the milk to this mix.
To make Almond cupcakes, add coarsely chopped almonds to the mix and lastly for Pistachio cupcakes, add chopped pistachio.
Fill each muffin cup with 2/3 rd batter.
Bake the cupcakes for approximately 20 minutes until they are golden brown and fork inserted comes out clean.Let the cupcakes cool down before doing any icing/decorations.

For Icing:
Confectioners Sugar: 1cup
Butter: 1/4 cup
Vanilla extract: 1/2 tsp
Milk: 1tsp
Whisk sugar and butter with blender. Add vanilla and milk and give a quick churn until smooth and of spreading consistency. Else can also use ready to use frostings available at supermarkets.
For Saffron Cupcake, mix few strands of saffron to the frosting to get glowing yellow cupcakes.
For Almond cupcakes, mix chopped almonds to the frosting to get silky white cupcakes.
For Pistachio cupcakes, mix chopped pistachios to the frosting to make green delectable cupcakes.