Lemon and Limoncello Mini Cupcakes

Fancy a bit of zing...then these little beauties are for you! It would be difficult to get more zingy than a lemon and Limoncello cupcake. They're also mini cupcakes so they're perfectly bitesize and it was a little bit difficult to stop at one!

This is my entry into May's Random Recipes, you can find out more from Dom at Belleau Kitchen. This month to select the random recipe, a cookbook was selected with eyes shut and then for the first time in random recipes history there was a choice of recipes...either the recipe on the first page or the last page. I decided to follow Dom's lead and  (fairly carefully!) fling my cookbooks all over the lounge floor, I then riffled through and my hand settled on this gem hiding amongst the big boys.

So the book I randomly selected was Hamlyn's 200 mini cakes & bakes. I then had a choice of two recipes but I settled on this one on the first page...I won't tell you what was on the back page as I'm hoping to make that one too.

These cupcakes are so easy to make, they're just a simple sponge cupcake, topped with a luscious layer of lemon curd and a pretty buttercream swirl which has both lemon juice and Limoncello mixed in. The finished product is a fairly unassuming cupcake but once you bite into it, it packs a punch. I used Limonce limoncello which is an Italian liqueur made by steeping lemon peels in alcohol.

The only mishap I had was the loss of my lemon curd...I bought it on the way home and then couldn't find it for love nor money for about an hour...I found it eventually on the wall outside my front door! This is quite funny as this week I was reading a blog post about some lost blueberries which turned up a month later under a car seat.

Anyways.... this is also my entry into the 'One Ingredient Challenge', hosted by Laura at How to Cook Good Food and Working London Mummy. An ingredient is selected each month and it is then up to you what you do with it, sweet or savoury...this month just happens to be lemons and as I said, you can't get much more lemony than these mini cupcakes!

For this challenge your recipes should also be family friendly...obviously I don't advocate making Limoncello cupcakes for children (!) but I also made some without as I wasn't sure how strong the cupcakes would taste. I left it out completely for half the cupcakes but if you wanted that lemon hit, a lemon sugar syrup would have the same effect when drizzled over the cake.

Ingredients

65g lightly salted butter
65g caster sugar
65g self-raising flour
1 lemon, zest and 1 tbsp juice
1 egg
3 tbsp limoncello liquer

Icing

5 tbsp lemon curd
75g unsalted butter
100g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and put 16 mini silicone muffin cases on a baking sheet. I didn't have silicone so I just used traditional cases in a mini muffin pan.

This recipe is really easy. To make the cakes you just need to mix up the butter, sugar, flour, lemon zest and egg in a mixing bowl unitl it's lovely and light and fluffy, before spooning into the cases. Then bake for around 10-12 minutes. Be sure not to over cook them, they should be just firm. When cooked put on a wire rack before removing form the silicone cases after about 2 minutes. You can then drizzle over 2 tablespoons of Limoncello.

Once called spread divide about 2 tablespoons of lemon curd between the cakes and spread over the top with a knife. Finally, make up the icing by putting the butter (softened), icing sugar, lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of Limoncello into a bowl and mixing until smooth and creamy. The recipe initially called for 50g of icing sugar which was nowhere near enough, so I've increased it to 100g but I think I probably used more like 150g. Then put your icing into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe pretty little swirls on to the top of each cake.

* Adapted from Hamlyn's 200 mini cakes & bakes

Cinco de Mayo Pinata Cookies

Cinco de Mayo... English translation...the 5th of May! This is an annual celebration in the USA and Mexico. If you check it out on Wikipedia you'll find that the date is observed in the US as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride and to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War. In the Mexican state of Puebla, it commemorates the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

I love these cookies, they're so bright and cheerful and if that wasn't enough there's a hidden surprise. If you can bear to smash into your little burro then you'll find a secret cache of M&Ms!

These cookies require a little effort to make but I think it was worth it, although I won't be whipping them up on a regular basis. The process started with the making of an unusual dough, it had a cup of vegetable oil in and was incredibly soft, yet not sticky. This was then divided into six with copious amounts of food colouring being added to give the characteristic pinata colours.

Once coloured the dough was layered up, one colour on top of the other in a tupperware box before being frozen overnight. To bake, slices of the dough were cut off the frozen block and baked for 12-14 minutes and then immediately upon coming out of the oven the burros were cut out of the slabs. For every two regular donkies, one was cut to make the secret hiding place. I did this with a small circle cutter and sadly his legs and ears also had to be removed! The three parts were then stuck together with a little royal icing with the M&Ms hidden inside first.

Once cut the pinata cookies were a little fragile and there were a couple of limbs lost along the way, leading to a few wonky donkeys...sorry I couldn't resist!

If you want to make your own pinata cookies then the original recipe came from the She Knows website and has full instructions. However, I'd be interested to know if anyone tries this with regular cookie dough and whether this would work just as well? I guess the concept could also be used in all sorts of other cookie creations.

Many people believe that pinatas originated in Mexico, although it has been suggested that the idea of breaking a container filled with treats came from Europe, in particular Spain in the 14th Century where they were used for the celebration of Lent. However, whilst this may be correct, apparently the true origins are Chinese with the Chinese version being in the shape of a cox or ox and being used for the New Year. 

Cookie Writing

Last week I attended a two hour 'Cookie Writing' evening class at Cakes 4 Fun in Putney. It was a chance to go along and learn about a variety of different ways to write on and personalise your bakes. Many of these ideas can be used on larger cakes but for ease and due to the limited time, we tried out our new skills on cookies.

As you can see below we used royal icing for piping by hand, this is quite tricky and requires a bit of practice. There were also edible images, if you're feeling really keen you can print these yourself by using purchasing edible ink and using a designated printer for edible images!

Tappits can be used to give a nice uniform finish, as well as regular cutters to give the finish you can see in number 4. Finally, why not just style your own writing out of rolled sugarpaste, or alternatively you can use edible pens to write straight on! All of these suggestions are great ways of adding the personal touch to your cakes and cookies and as always the Cakes 4 Fun team came up with some fab designs and a great colour scheme which ties all the cookies together! 

1. Piping with Royal Icing                                           2. Edible Images

3. Tappits                                                                      4. Cutter

5. Rolled sugarpaste                                                     6. Edible Pen

I don't want to give too much away as if you want to learn more and find out how to use each of the methods properly, I'd definitely recommend going on the course. Cakes 4 Fun always run great classes and the tutors are lovely, so if you're ever in this neck of the woods, give it a go! :-)

Random Recipes: Upside-down Apricot Cake

There seems to have been a proliferation of upside down cakes in the blogosphere this week, I've seen at least four others! However, this recipe is my entry into the Random Recipes challenge hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen. This month's challenge was to select a book at random from the baking books you own and then flick through with your eyes closed and whatever recipe you land on, you bake! The book I selected was Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell.

This challenge suits me down to the ground as I would estimate that over 90% of my recipe books are baking related. So I had rather a large selection to choose from as you can see from the picture...and this is only a fraction of the books I own. I think many people would agree that buying recipe books is just as addictive as baking out of them!!!

Well it's fair to say that my previous two entries for Random Recipes have been somewhat challenging. I selected a Fruit Slice with Flaky Pastry in January and an Alice in Wonderland Teapot cake in March. So I thought when I picked an upside down cake this would be the easiest yet but to be honest I'm a little dubious about the outcome and therefore the recipe below has the modifications I would make.                                                               d                                                                                                                          

The first thing I have to say is NEVER believe a recipe for an upside down cake or similar which suggests using a loose bottom tin. I was slightly dubious about this to start with but who am I to argue with the recipe. Well I was right to be dubious...within minutes of putting my cake in the oven the juice and melted butter for the bottom of the tin leaked out of the base... leading to some serious oven cleaning once the cake came out. I think had it not been loose bottomed all that lovely syrup and sugar would have given a better caramelised top to the cake. Lakeland have actually started selling something called PushPans which are essentially loose bottomed but they have a seal round the bottom to prevent just this sort of thing. Has anyone tried them?

So what other modifications would I make. Well I used tinned apricots as the British apricot season is May to September, and they worked just fine. In addition to the cake the recipe also calls for a syrup to be made to pour over the cake once turned out. This consists of honey, water and lemon juice, half a lemon in fact. However, I found the taste of lemon in the syrup completely overwhelming, it basically obliterates the flavour of the apricots and the cake. So if I were to make this again I think I'd just put in a tablespoon of lemon juice or quite possibly none at all.

My final observation is that the cake seemed to brown up very quickly on the outside and take a lot longer on the inside. This could well have been something to do with my baking but I did put foil over the cake towards the end but also had to leave it around 5 minutes longer than stated in the recipe.

All this aside the general taste of the cake was good but I definitely preferred it with less of the overpowering syrup! The apricots were lovely and soft and the texture of the cake was light. This is my first upside down cake and I'd certainly like to try another one!

Recipe adapted from Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell:

Sauce

100g set honey
100ml water
1 teaspoon cornflour
1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional)

Apricots

30g light muscovado sugar
30g salted butter
12 tinned apricot halves if out of season, otherwise you can use fresh apricots

Cake

150g salted butter
150g golden caster sugar
2 medium eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
125ml whole milk
200g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Start by making the honey syrup. Weigh out the honey in the saucepan and add the water (and lemon juice if using). Bring to the boil. Whilst waiting, measure out the cornflour into a small bowl. When the honey and water comes to the boil pour a small amount in with the cornflour and mix to a smooth paste. Then add this back into the saucepan and simmer for one minute or until slightly thickened. Set aside to cool, you could serve this on the side in a jug if you'd like.

Heat the oven to 200c/180c fan/gas 6 before creaming together the muscovado and butter for the apricots. This is then smeared around the base of a 20cm cake tin WITHOUT removeable base. Maybe try a push pan or if you try a fixed base pan let me know how you get on!! Then arrange the apricots on top of the butter/sugar mix with the cut side down. The original recipe suggests 10, I found that 12 fitted better.

Finally, make the cake mixture to cover the apricots. This is fairly easy, just cream together the sugar and butter before adding the eggs one at a time. At this point add the lemon zest. You can then sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and add the milk. Give it a good mix before spooning over the aprictos and levelling the surface.

Bake for around 45-50 minutes, although it took me around 55 minutes. If the cake appears to be browning rather too much on the top just pop a bit of foil over it as you near the end of the cooking tim. When you remove the cake from the oven, leave it to cool in the pan for around 15 minutes but you can run a knife around the edge as it comes out.
To remove from the tin place a plate over the top of the cake tin and then invert the cake and it should come out onto your plate. To serve pour the honey syrup over the top of the cake. You could serve this warm or at room temperature. Warm with some ice cream might be good for dessert! :-)