Lemon Cup Cakes

Nikka asked me did I have any plans for the day. On quizzing her why she asks, she tells me she'd like to cook something. The 'something' actually turns out to be cupcakes. I give her some cake cookbooks and told her to browse through them till she came upon a "doable' recipe. It was probably a good idea to skip the wedding and the christening sections.

Nick loves lemons, she always has been a lover of citrus flavours. I recall as a little tike she'd pick whole cumquats from the tree and pop them straight into her mouth. So it was a little hard to go past the lemon cakes with lemon glace icing. I admit to having reservations about white chocolate on top and tasting okay with the lemon theme; even so it did look pretty.

And so here I am on this rainy morning foregoing all other intentions I had for the day; a cooking class was in order with a keen daughter.

Lemon Butter Cakes
(adapted from the AWW's Classic Cupcakes Cookbook)

90gm butter, softened
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
110gm caster sugar
2 eggs, preferably free-range at room temperature
150gm SR flour
2 tablespoons milk

Lemon Glace Icing
2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon softened butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice, approx

Decorations
90gm melted white choc
small silver cachous

• Preheat oven to 160deg C. Line 8 holes of a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases
• Beat butter, rind, & sugar for about 8 to 10 mins till light, pale and fluffy. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Fold in well sifted flour with milk, mixing to combine.  Take beaters and whisk for about 30secs to remove any remaining lumps. Drop in 1/4 cup amounts of mixture into paper cases.
• Bake about 20 mins.  Stand cakes in pan 5 mins before turning, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.
• Make lemon glace icing. Spread cold cakes with icing; stand until set.
• Fill a small piping bag (preferably a handmade paper one), with the warm melted chocolate. Snip the end; quickly drizzle chocolate backwards and forwards over the cake tops. Quickly sprinkle cakes with silver cachous before chocolate sets. 

Lemon Glace Icing:

• Sift icing sugar into a bowl; add butter & 1tbspoon of lemon juice.  Mix well; mixture should be stiff. Add more lemon juice and keep mixing till you reach a nice pliable consistency; be careful though - we don't want a runny consistency. 

Recipe makes 8 cupcakes. 

Verdict:

• Well the photography is generally of a high standard, so no surprise there. I'm happy to report the cupcakes were delicious and they looked so pretty.  The lemon flavour really came through and it was a lovely contrast with the rind in the cake and the lemon juice in the icing.  The only thing I would change is to add another 20gm of butter or another two tablespoons of milk. The cake was a little dense and I do like a soft textured crumb in the cake itself. Otherwise - A big thumbs up from me daughter. It's comforting to know that when I'm old and grey in the nursing home, I will be able to look forward to the occasional cup cake. Yummo and well done! Hmm, I wonder what you're going to surprise me with next - keep cooking!