Sunday 4 March 2012

Lemon Cupcakes! :)

I made these on Friday and had hoped to post the recipe yesterday but life gets in the way and I've been a busy bee (I will be enjoying a large gin and tonic very soon , I deserve it!)

It's probably very apparent if you've seen some of my other recipe posts that I'm a huge fan of coffee and chocolate flavoured things, but I also really love lemon (I generally love sour things, especially sweets!) and I really enjoy the combination of sweet cakey and sour lemon flavours :) It was about time I made a lemony recipe, and these lemon cupcakes were the perfect choice!

Unfortunately we didn't have any real lemons in the house, but I had lemon juice and lemon extract so I improvised and they still turned out pretty yummy- but I'll include both my adaptations and the original recipe for you, I think these would be much nicer with real lemon.

The recipe is very similar to many other Hummingbird cupcake recipes- and if you prefer you can easily adapt my super-simple cupcake recipe by including some lemon juice and zest instead of using this recipe.



You will need:

120g plain flour
150g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons lemon zest (I used
about the same amount of lemon juice instead)
40g unsalted butter (room temp)
120ml milk
1 egg



1) Place the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and lemon zest- it using) and butter into a bowl and mix slowly until you get a strange breadcrumby texture.




2) Slowly pour in the milk (and lemon juice, if using) whilst mixing slowly. Then add the egg and beat thoroughly for about 2 minutes- you want a nice smooth mixture.




3) Pour the mixture into cupcake cases- I made 10 largish cupcakes- and bake at 170C (325F, Gas 3) for approximately 20 minutes;  until they have golden tops and are cooked all the way through.





If you wish you can top them with lemony butter cream (recipe below) or a lemony glaze (a simple mixture of icing sugar and lemon juice to make glace icing), or of course leave them plain :)




For the lemon butter icing you'll need:

250g icing sugar
25ml milk
80g unsalted butter (room temperature)
Lemon extract or 2 tablespoons of lemon zest
Yellow food colouring (if you wish)

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk slowly until combined, then beat on a high speed for a few minutes to make the frosting light and fluffy. The food colouring makes it seem extra lemony, and they look all cute and Spring-like :)






                                                                                                           xGretalRabbitx


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2 comments:

  1. Mmmm, I love lemony things! Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me too! My pleasure, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
      xGretalRabbitx

      Delete

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