I have been hopeless about writing my blog
in the past few months. We are finally
back from a lovely few weeks walking in France and spending time with family in
the UK.
I have been in a baking mood recently,
despite not eating what I bake, I love the simplicity of making cupcakes and
then the creativity involved in decorating them. We had a glut of limes on our tree so I
actually substituted limes for lemons!
Lemon curd Cupcakes:
40g butter-at room temp.
140 g castor sugar
120 g plain flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 egg
110 ml milk
2 tbsp grated lemon zest
For the Lemon Curd
Juice and grated zest of 2 lemons
200g castor sugar
100g unsalted butter
4 eggs, beaten
For the icing
175g icing sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
Flowers to decorate-primroses and crocuses
are edible
First make the lemon curd-there will be
left overs which can be put in dry, warm, sterilised jars and kept in the
fridge for 2 weeks (granny ate all mine thickly spread onto home made
bread!). Put the lemon juice and zest in
a heavy based saucepan, add the sugar and dissolve over a low heat. Add the butter and stir until melted. Add the beaten eggs, and stir until the
mixture thickens. Spoon the mixture into
a bowl and allow to cool (it will thicken further as it cools).
Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees, set out a
couple of muffin trays and put a paper cupcake case in each hole.
Now make the cake mixture. Put the butter, sugar, flour and baking
powder in the bowl of an electric mixer or food processor, and mix until you
get the consistency of bread crumbs.
Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl beat together the egg,
milk and lemon zest. Add bit by bit to
the flour mixture until it is fully incorporated, but don’t over mix.
Spoon the mixture into the paper cases
until a third full. Put a teaspoonful of
lemon curd on top, then cover with another dollop of cake mixture. The cases should be about 2/3rds full. Bake
for 20-25 mins, until the cakes are golden and the tops spring back when
touched. Take them out of the tray and
leave to cool on a rack.
To make the icing, sift the sugar into a
bowl. Add the lemon juice and 1 tbsp.
warm water. You want a thick so if it
appears to be too runny, just add a bit more icing sugar.
Spread a good spoonful of icing all over
the top. You can decorate with grated
lemon zest or primroses which are edible.
I used geranium flowers.
