Lemon Curd Cupcakes

Last week was pretty horrible weather wise and as of Thursday the hosepipe was lifted for those living in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire due to the amount of rain we’ve had during what has been labelled as ‘drought’ conditions.

After seeing Annie of Mammasaurus had set up a Bake Yummy cupcake blog I thought I would make some lemon curd cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery Cook book.She had a malteaser cupcake recipe up at the time but I just went to get the link and there’s lemon curd and polenta cupcakes too so you can bake two types of zesty lemony goodness.

Makes 12 lemony cupcakes

Ingredients

120g plain flour

150g caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tablespoons grated lemon zest, plus extra to decorate ( from about 2 lemons)

40g unsalted butter, at room temperature

120ml whole milk

1 egg

6 tablespoons of lemon curd (I used my home made slow cooker lemon curd)

Lemon frosting

250g icing sugar, sifted

80g unsalted butter at room temperature

2 tablespoons of grated lemon zest

2 drops of yellow food colouring

25ml milk

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.Put 12 paper cupcake cases into a 12 holed cupcake tin.

2. In a bowl put the flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and butter and mix using an electrical mixer or hand mixer until it’s a sandy texture.Carefully add the milk until just mixed.

3. Add the egg and continue to mix until it’s smooth, do not over mix.Make sure you scrape down the sides in-between mixing.

4. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases up to 2/3 full.Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

5. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

6. Once cool remove the centre carefully using a apple corer, making sure you don’t go through to the bottom.Keep the sponge circles.

7. Spoon in the lemon curd and replace the sponge circles.

8. Beat together the icing sugar, butter, food colouring and lemon zest using an electrical hand whisk on high.Once it comes together, turn it down and slowly add the milk.Turn up to high again and beat for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.