T
his weekend I was pleased enough to be able to indulge in creating some pretty, girlie, sweet and dainty little cupcakes for a friends engagement party! A chance to get out the edible glitter and pink sprinkles for a little celebration!
Lemon sponge topped with a rose of vanilla buttercream and all exaggeratingly sprinkled with freeze dried raspberries and edible glitter. I don’t have a sweet tooth so I’m not a huge baker as such but I do appreciate a good buttercream icing. And this piping bag vat of the creamy sweet icing was probably the best buttercream I’ve ever made. Using an unrefined icing sugar (Billington’s Golden Icing Sugar) worked a treat. Not only did it not need sieving which is always a bit of a dull and trivial kitchen chore but it has a natural honeyed molasses flavour which added a beautiful depth of flour and golden colour. Freckled with the seeds of some bursting ripe vanilla pods it sat swirled and temptingly onto of these fluffy lemon sponges.
A great party and lovely celebration! Although I seem to have volunteered to make the wedding cake now…
Makes around 60 mini cupcakes
Cupcakes
- 220g unsalted butter
- 220g caster sugar
- 220g self raising flour
- 1 large 1stp baking powder
- 4 eggs
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Buttercream
- 250g unsalted butter
- 400g ‘Billington’s Golden icing sugar’
- 2 vanilla pods
- Freeze dried raspberries (optional)
- Edible glitter optional
- Preheat the oven to 180 and line a mini muffin tray with some mini muffing cases (you can also use normal cupcake size but it will obviously make less)
- Cream the butter and caster sugar together until fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one by one. Add the vanilla
- Sieve in the flour and baking power and stir to combine well.
- Finally stir in the lemon zest.
- Spoon about 1 tbsp of mixture into each muffin case and bake for 13-15 minutes until just golden and cooked.
- Remove from the tray and leave to cool. Repeat using the same tray until you have used up all the mixture. Leave all the cakes to cool completely.
- Meanwhile make the butter cream. Cream the butter with half the icing sugar until creamy.
- Cream in the vanilla seeds and the rest of the icing sugar.
- Add a few splashes of milk to thin out the mixture if it is a bit thick.
- Spoon into a piping bag with a nozzle shape of choice.
- When the cakes are cold, pipe the icing on top.
- Sprinkle with the raspberries and edible glitter if you like
