Lemon Cupcakes

Oh no no no! It's been too long! Over a month! Oopsie...

Sorry for the MONTH LONG delay! Can I make it up to you? I've got cupcakes...

I'm really into baking and lately I've been feeling adventurous with my cooking. I've never made buttercream icing before since I simply can't be bothered. Yesterday I thought, why not?

I found online a simple recipe for lemon cupcakes. It was a Mary Berry recipe. VERY trustworthy.

Ingredients:

• 125g Butter
• 125g Self Raising flour
• 125g Caster Sugar
• 2tbsp Milk
• 2 Large Eggs
• Finely Grated Zest of 1 Lemon

          For Lemon Icing:

• 125g butter
• 250g Icing Sugar
• Juice of 1 small lemon
• Edible silver balls or glitter to decorate (any edible decorations will do)
• Deep 12-hole muffin tin and 12 paper cases

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (gas mark 4).

2. Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric whisk until smooth. A good way to know that your mixture is ready is when there is no flour left on the sides of bowl. It should have a colour similar to my one in the picture on the right.

3. Evenly share the mixture between 12 muffin cases and put into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Tip: It's advised to remove them when they are well risen and light golden brown, however, not all of mine were completely that colour so I stuck a clean butter knife inside the palest one. It came out clean so all the cupcakes were DEFINATELY ready.

 

 

 

4. Make the icing: Sift 125g of icing sugar into a bowl and add the butter in as well (Tip: Use a medium sized bowl NOT a small one).



5. This next step was tricky as the original recipe said to use an electric whisk to mix the two ingredients together however the icing sugar of course exploded everywhere therefore I used an electric blender instead. The job was much quicker and cleaner. Tip: DON'T over mix! It's ready when it looks smooth.

6. Add the lemon juice to the mixture and sift in the remaining 125g of icing sugar. Then whisk again (this time using an electric whisk) until light and fluffy.

7. This was the trickiest and messiest part! Spread the icing over the cupcakes (ideally using an icing bag or bottle) and decorate with edible sprinkles and balls.

 

 

These were absolutely delicious and a lovely coming home treat for my sister today. I urge you to try this recipe however, be aware that in the original recipe it says that preparation time takes 10 minutes but for me it took two and a half hours! Still, very worthwhile.
 
Hopefully I haven't bored you with my on going babble.
 
Sharleen x

Me Looking very pleased with Le Cupcakes

 

To look at Mary Berry's original lemon cupcake recipe, click on this link: http://www.redonline.co.uk/food/recipes/mary-berrys-lemon-cupcakes