Lemon Cupcakes

(Copied from old blog...originally posted 4th April 2009)

I got bored this afternoon so I decided to do some baking. When bored, I make cupcakes as they are so quick and easy when you can just chuck everything in your food mixer. I decided to sit and have a mooch through my cookery books for flavour inspiration - I wasn't too sure what I had lurking in the cupboards but thought I might have something that I could use.

I happened across Rachel Allen's Bake which I was bought for Christmas and shamefully, have never opened until today and in there was this lovely looking recipe for lemon cupcakes. I had a lonely lemon sitting in the fridge (with no idea how long it's been sitting there.....do they go off?") so thought I would give them a try.

Well, they were gorgeous and a real hit with all the family. The lemon buttercream was so delicious I could have just eaten it straight out of the bowl, forget the cake! The recipe worked really well although having tweaked the temp a little to allow for my fan cooker, they took much longer to cook than the recipe stated. I did think in the first place that 7-10mins was a little on the short side anyway, but it took about 20mins until they looked ready. The cakes came out really light and fluffy - maybe down to the fact I used Stork rather than butter, who knows.

Lemon Cupcakes

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
125g caster sugar
1/2 lemon, finely grated zest only
2 eggs beaten
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the butter icing;
75g butter, softened
175g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 lemon, finely grated zest only
1-2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
12 crystallised flowers (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Line a 12-hole fairy cake tin with paper cases.

Cream the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add the sugar and grated lemon zest and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten eggs, then sift in the flour and baking powder and fold into the mixture. Alternatively, whiz all the ingredients together in an electric food mixer.

Divide the mixture between the paper cases and bake in the preheated oven for 7–10 minutes, until risen and golden. When cooked, the centre of each cake should be slightly springy to the touch. Remove the cakes from the tin and put on a wire rack to cool before you ice them.

For the lemon butter icing, cream the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon or hand-held electric beater until very soft. Gradually add the icing sugar and beat into the butter, along with the lemon zest and enough lemon juice to soften the icing to a spreadable consistency.

When the cupcakes are cool, spread a generous heaped teaspoon of lemon butter icing over the top of each one. Decorate with the crystallised flowers (if using).

I was really pleased with these, they tasted scrumptious and didn't look too bad either. Okay, I'm never going to win awards for my cake decorating, but I never professed to be any good at it! Besides, in my defense Rachel did say just to spread it on with a teaspoon, it's never going to be perfect is it!

love & kisses
Mrs M x