I have a confession to make. Despite what the title of this article suggests, I actually made lemon cupcakes this week. The trouble with being a student baker is that you often have to work with what you’ve got, and I couldn’t find poppyseeds ANYWHERE in town (ok, so I didn’t go all the way out to Morrisons, but that’s just a massive faf in my view). I also only had tiny cupcake cases instead of larger muffin ones, so please don’t worry if your lemony creations are twice the size of those pictured.
Ingredients:
- 225g self-raising flour
- 175g golden caster sugar
- zest of 2 lemons
- 1 tbsp poppyseeds (toasted)
- 3 eggs
- 100g natural yoghurt
- 175g melted butter (cooled slightly)
- 225g butter
- 400g icing sugar
- juice of 1 lemon
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and pop some muffin cases in a 12-hole cupcake tray.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, lemon zest and poppyseeds in a large mixing bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a fork and mix in the yoghurt.
4. Pour over the dry mixture with the melted butter and mix together with a wooden spoon, stirring vigorously until all the lumps are gone (you can use an electric whisk if you prefer).
5. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases until they are 2/3 full – this recipe should make 12 ‘muffins’ or 24 small cupcakes.
6. Bake in the oven for 20 mins until pale golden brown. A skewer inserted in the middle should come out clean.
7. Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove from the tin and cool completely on a wire rack.
8. For the icing, beat together the butter, sugar, and lemon juice with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Because of the lemon juice, this icing is slightly more runny than normal, but it should still hold its shape.
9. When the cakes have cooled, spread the icing evenly on top of each one with a knife. If you want, you can add some sugar flower decorations or a bit more lemon zest to make them look a bit more fancy.