Luscious Lemon Cupcakes

Well I may be on my own with this one but as it’s now March as far as I’m concerned Spring is here. It may still be cold and may still be rainy, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all about flowers and new born lambs.
With this in mind I decided to whip up a batch of my ridiculously simple Luscious Lemon Cupcakes.
Cupcakes were the first thing I ever successfully baked and hold a special place in my heart. One day I’ll write more on my history in the kitchen (it involves icing a cake before baking it, forgetting to add any flour to another and the great homemade cheese debacle of 1986 to name but a few highlights)
I actually failed repeatedly in the kitchen until I was 28 years old!!! And it took me another few more years to muster up the courage to attempt baking again.
So essentially if I can do it, anyone can do it!
Let me know how you get on x

Luscious Lemon Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cakes

• 2 eggs
• 115g butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 115g self raising flour
• grated zest of 1 lemon

Icing

• 150g butter
• 300g icing sugar
• juice of 1 lemon

Plus any decorations you like (although you don’t need any if you don’t have any!)

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases
• Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale
• Beat in the eggs one at a time along with a little bit of the flour to stop the mixture from splitting (I believe clever people don’t need to add in any flour, but I always do to be on the safe side)
• Add in the rest of the flour and this time fold it in until only just all combined then fold in the grated lemon zest
• Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack
• Whilst they cool you can make the icing!

I’m not going to lie this is tiring by hand. I did spend years doing so, but then I rescued Ken (my Mum’s 1973 Kenwood mixer) from my Dad’s garage and he always comes out to play when buttercream is involved.

Ken – The love of my life

• Beat the butter in a large bowl until it’s soft
• Add half the icing sugar and beat again until smooth
• Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the lemon juice until smooth. You can then taste the icing and add more juice until you’re happy with the flavour (remember you can always add more but you can’t take it away!)
• Then ice and decorate the cakes as you wish.

For many years I slapped the icing on with a knife and no-one complained but then I discovered piping. Personally I like to use a Wilton 1M tip  to make a swirl on top.