Lemon Meringue

I love putting baking on my cake stand, it makes it seem complete :)

I made these cupcakes from The Australian Woman's Weekly 'Cupcakes and Fairycakes'. It's an amazing books, they have such imagination when it comes to decorating things, really inspiring. The recipes themselves are pretty good too, though there is a little bit too much coconut in most of it for my liking. They defiantly take cupcakes to a new level; they're more like miniature works of art! If you see this book around I would say it's well worth buying, any baking books in their series are, plus they're not exactly expensive.

All in a row

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Lemon Curd:

Ingredients:

4 egg yolks
1/3 cup/ 75g caster sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
1/4 cup/ 60ml lemon juice
40g butter

Method:
Combine ingredients in a small heatproof bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat.
Cover tightly; refrigerate until cold

Lemon Curd Cake:

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened
2 teaspoons Finley grated lemon rind
2/3 cup/ 150g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup/ 80ml milk
1 1/4 cups/ 185g self-raising flour

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases
Beat the butter, rind, sugar, and eggs in a small bowl until light and fluffy
Stir in the milk.
Divide among cases, smooth surface
Bake for about 20 minutes. Turn out onto wire rack to cool. Increase oven to 220 degrees C.

Cut a 2 cm deep hole in the center of each cake, fill with curd. Discard tops ,or you can cut off the sponge filling of the top so you're left with a 'hat' to cover the hole (and it's a good idea to keep the trimmings for the people who just can't wait for the cupcakes to be finished).

Meringue:

Ingredients:
4 egg whites
1 cup/ 220g caster sugar

Method:
Beat egg whites in a small bowl with electric mixer until soft peaks form.
Gradually add the sugar, beating well after each addition. Beat until stiff, glossy peaks form.

Spoon the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain tube
Pipe meringue on top of each cake.
Place cakes on oven tray. Bake for about 5 minutes, or until meringue is golden brown.

It's great when things turn out like they look in the book

This was one of the simpler recipes, and I didn't really make any changes apart from omitting the coconut (they were originally coconut lemon meringue cupcakes, but seeing as how my entire family despises coconut that wasn't really going to happen). They're not too challenging, and if you want to cut back on time you could always use ready-made lemon curd (though this means you will be left with extra egg yolks from the meringue).