Lemon meringue cupcakes
My lovely commenter Jen contacted me on Twitter yesterday and said she’d just made some of my lemon meringue cupcakes. I was inspired to knock up a batch, but when I went to find the recipe of course they weren’t here as I’d done them as a guest post for Rosie Scribble back in March.
Anyhoo, if you haven’t seen them, they SO deserve another outing. In fact, even if you don’t bother to make the meringue bit, do make the cupcakes and the lemon curd. They’re rather lip smacking, even if I say so myself:
You will need:
170g softened butter
170g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
170g self raising flour
So firstly, beat the butter and sugar until very pale and creamy. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, giving the mixture a good mix in between. Add in the vanilla extract, then gently fold in the flour until well combined.
Dollop the mixture into 12 muffin cases (about 1 tbsp each) and bake at 180/gas 4 for 15-20 mins until they’re just springy when touched. Set aside to cool while you make some lemon curd (you can buy it, but home-made is just so much nicer, and very easy):
100g butter
2 lemons, zested then juiced
150g caster sugar
2 whole eggs plus one yolk (keep white for the meringue)
Take a saucepan and put in the butter, lemon juice and zest and caster sugar. Melt it all together slowly, stirring until the sugar is all dissolved. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until well combined. Now, take your warm, lemony, butter mixture and gently pour a little bit into the egg, whisking all the time, then a bit more, then a bit more, until you’ve combined about half of it with the eggs. Don’t bung it all in at once or you’ll get lovely bits of scrambled egg floating around in your lemon curd.
Now bung that lot back into the saucepan and keep whisking and simmering until the mixture thickens. Turn off the heat and leave to cool. It will thicken a bit more when cooled. Oh and remember to just stir it occasionally to keep it from getting a skin on.
When it’s about room temperature, and the cakes are cooled, you can add about a tablespoon (or as much as you can balance without it dribbling off the edge of the cupcake) onto each cake:
Finally, just give your meringues a very quick go either (carefully!) under a hot grill, or give them a blast with a kitchen blowtorch, just to ‘set’ the meringue and very gently brown the tops.
Feel free to leave your cupcakes bare, but they’re crying out for all manner of silly glittery, hearty, pink decoration (or is that just me?).
Oh and make sure any leftover lemon curd is refrigerated and used up within a couple of days (I never have that problem).
I know I keep turning up on your blog and fainting at the sheer deliciousness of it all but I can’t help myself.
*resumes fainting*