Lemon Curd Cupcakes

I had SO much lemon curd leftover from when I made chilli jam (I emptied the jars so I could fill them with the jam) and I haven't really thought of much to make from it yet. I made some lemon tarts that looked terrible, they weren't even worthy enough of a photograph!!

I love lemon cupcakes, so decided to put lemon curd in the mixture. The icing was quite runny, but it  looked good, and more importantly, it tasted good!!

Recipe:

Cake

- 125g butter

- 125g caster sugar

- 4 tbsp (60g) lemon curd

- 2 eggs

- 150g of self-raising flour

Icing

- 75g butter

- 200g icing sugar

- 3 tbsp lemon curd (taste it as you go along and see if you need more)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Put 12 cupcake liners on a muffin tray.

2. Cream the butter with a fork until it is pale and fluffy.

3. Add the sugar and lemon curd and cream it again. The longer you cream the butter for, the lighter your cakes will be.

4. Add the eggs one at a time, and mix well after each egg.

5. Sift the flour into the mix. You don't have to sift it, but it will ensure that you have no lumps and get more air into the cakes. Gently fold the flour into the mixture.

6. Divide the mix equally between the 12 cupcake liners and bake for 10-15 minutes. You want to fill the liners with a big tablespoon on mixture. I normally find that there is enough mix for 13 cakes, so you can enjoy licking the bowl clean when you have made 12!

7. For the icing, cream the butter, add the lemon curd, then gently and gradually stir in the icing sugar. I found it was quite runny, so I left it in the bowl in the fridge while the cakes were baking, took the cakes out and left them to cool, then transferred the icing into a piping bag and put it in the freezer for 20 minutes. 

8. Ice your cupcakes. You don't have to pipe the icing, but I had a go at it for the first time! If you don't want to pipe the icing on, it doesn't need to be as thick, so you don't need to put it in the freezer. You can decorate them with anything you want, I chose edible glitter!

You could carve a hole in the cupcakes before you ice them, and then fill the hole with lemon curd!

I love the photo below, how cute are the cases?

Zoe x

Mixed Berry Crumble

A while ago I posted the recipe for a crumble. This time I made it as individual servings, instead of one big one.

Serves one.

Recipe:

Crumble: 
- 100g plain flour 

- 50g unsalted butter 

- 45g Demerara sugar (soft brown sugar)

Centre: 

- A few tbsp of frozen berries

- 1 tsp cornflour 

- 1 1/2 tsp sugar

- ½ tsp vanilla essence 

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Place the flour, butter and baking soda into a bowl and rub with your fingers or mix with a fork, until it forms breadcrumbs. 

3. Add the sugar and mix together. This can go in the freezer until you are ready to use it.

4. In a ramekin, pour the berries, cornflour and sugar in and mix together.

5. Top the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the crumble topping. Cook in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes.

Before being cooked...

Be careful! The ramekins are really hot when they come out of the oven, so you will probably need to transfer the crumble to a dish.

I then spooned the crumble out of the ramekins and served with vanilla ice cream. Custard or cream would also be lovely with this!

Zoe x