I LOVE lemon flavoured anything, but lemon flavoured desserts are pretty much top of my lemon loving list. Lemon posset, lemon tart, lemon drizzle cake, I could go on...It's the perfect combination of sweetness to abate any sugar cravings and the tangy tartness from the lemons that provides a refreshing lift to any dessert.
I can pretty much guarantee that there will be a lot more lemon infused recipes on the blog over time, but for now I'm going to start off with my lemony lemon meringue cupcakes. It deserves this double-barreled status due to not only consisting of a lemon cake base, but also the hidden layer of lemon curd, which is perfectly married with a sweet mallowy meringue topping.
If heaven was a cupcake, it might possibly be this.
Full ingredients and step-by-step recipe below. Do let me know if you try these beauties and tweet me a piccy of them to @becskr using the #becksbakes.
Enjoy.
Becks xx
THE SPONGE
Ingredients:
This recipe makes 12 cupcakes in muffin sized casings
- 225g self raising flour
- 225g caster sugar
- 225g softened unsalted butter
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Zest and juice of 1 large lemon
Step-by-Step Method:
- Pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas4
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. I used my Kenwood standmixer, but you can use a hand mixer or just old fashioned elbow grease with a wooden spoon like I used to do as a child. Make sure the butter is really soft, it will make your life sooo much easier
- At this stage I like to add the flour and eggs in batches, to stop any curdling. So add half the flour, 2 eggs and the baking powder and combine
- Once brought together add the remaining flour and eggs until combined. Don't over mix the batter as you may find you might not get such a great rise in your cupcakes
- Now add the juice and zest of one large lemon and combine.
- Put your muffin cases into a cupcake tin and add the cake butter mix evenly to each case. Using an ice-cream scoop measures the batter evenly, so each cake is the same size, if you are so inclined for such military precision!
- Now pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes until cooked through. It's ready when you insert a toothpick into one of the cakes and no batter sticks. They should be lovely and golden brown. See below picture to see how mine turned out
Make the lemon curd while your cupcakes are cooking.
I'm not going to lie. This recipe will make WAY more lemon curd than you need for these cupcakes. In fact it makes a whole Kilner style jar extra. But...lemon curd lasts for a few weeks in the fridge so you can keep this and have it on scones, toast, with ice cream, or if you're feeling nice, give it to a friend as a present.
Lemon curd isn't difficult to make, much to people's surprise. You can basically put all the ingredients in a heavy based pan, stirring occassionally and it should come out fine. I added a few more steps, just in case, but essentially this is drama free so there is really no need to buy shop bought ever again.
One last confession, this is basically a Delia recipe. I've always used her lemon curd recipes as they are so tasty. However, once I made this, I would have liked a little bit more zing to the lemon curd, so if you like
your lemon curd really zesty, perhaps add one more lemon, zest and juice, to this or a little less sugar.
Ingredients:
- 4 large lemons - zest and juice
- 4 large eggs
- 350g golden caster sugar
- 225g of softened unsalted butter
- Put the sugar and lemon zest into a pyrex bowl
- Whisk the lemon juice and eggs together and then pour that over the sugar and lemon zest mixture. Quick Tip: to get the most juice out of your lemons, roll the lemon under the palm of your hand back and forth for a while. This makes a big difference to how much juice you get out of them
- Then cut up the butter into small cubes and add this to the mixture
- Now place the pyrex bowl over a pan of simmering hot water, stirring occassionally until nice and thick. This will take about 20, maybe 30 minutes
- Great thing about this is that you don't need to keep stirring all the time, just come back from time to time
- Let the curd cool completely, speed up the process by putting it in the fridge
This is a cake topping of pure delicious genius and so easy to make. You will need an electric whisk of some description though in order to make the process go a lot quicker and save your arms.
Ingredients:
- 4 large egg whites
- 280g caster sugar
- Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, like the first image above
- Now gradually add the sugar, whisking continuously until the mixture gets a lot thicker, it basically doubles in size and is really glossy. This will take about 5-8 minutes and should look something like the second image above
Done. It's that easy.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Once the cupcakes and lemon curd have cooled down, it's time to bring everything together and make these seriously delicious cupcakes.
Take a cupcake and make a little hole in the middle with a small sharp knife like above. Then add a teaspoon of lemon curd or so into the hole. Once you've done this, you want to put the cake hat back on top. You may need to cut some of the cake away in order for it to fit properly without all the lemon curd squeezing out.
Now for the messy bit. Put the meringue topping into a piping bag and pipe it on top of the cake. If you don't have a piping bag that's fine, just spoon it on top however you like. It's really difficult not to eat all of this meringue topping right there and then. Restrain yourself. It tastes even better on top of this cake. You then want to take a cook's blowtorch and burn some of the top of the meringue topping, like it's been cooked it in the oven. Don't be overly enthusiastic here, as it's quite easy to burn the paper casing, as I found out.
For some extra dressing you could top these with yellow sugar as above, but I decided they looked best au natural.
Et voila! Lemony Lemon Meringue Cupcakes which will not only impress your friends, but yourself! I promise.
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