Julie Goodwin's Lemon Diva Cupcakes Recipe
Lemon Diva cupcakes - makes 12
Ingredients:
100 g unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup (165 g) caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
finely grated zest of 3 lemons
2 eggs
1. cups (200 g) self-raising flour
1/2 cup (125 ml) milk
Icing
125 g unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (300 g) icing sugar mixture
11/2 tbs lemon juice
yellow food colouring (optional)
yellow liquorice allsorts, to decorate
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
1 Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan-forced). Line a 12-hole medium
muffi n pan (1/3 cup capacity) with paper cases. Using electric
beaters, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light
and
creamy. Mix through the lemon zest.
2 Add the eggs one at a time, beating well a er each egg. Gently
fold through the fl our and milk in two alternate batches. Divide
the mixture evenly among the paper cases.
3 Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and springy when
touched. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to
cool completely before decorating.
4 To make the icing, use electric beaters to beat the butter until
light and creamy. Add the icing sugar a little at a time, beating
constantly. Add half the lemon juice and beat until well combined.
Add the remaining lemon juice a little at a time, and tint with
food colouring if you like. Using a 1 cm fluted nozzle, pipe the
icing onto the cooled cupcakes. Decorate with a small lemon shape
cut from
a yellow piece of liquorice allsort.
Note: To make Lime Sublime cupcakes, substitute the zest of 6 limes
in the cake batter and 2 tbs of lime juice in the icing. For
Clockwork Orange cupcakes, try using the zest of 2 oranges in the
batter and 2 tbs of orange juice in the icing.
Julie Goodwin says: " I made these little cupcakes
in a MasterChef mystery box challenge. Our brief was to create and
name a signature cupcake. I went with a very strong lemon-fl
avoured cake
and named it the Lemon Diva. I was thrilled to pieces to win the
challenge and I now get requests to bake them all the time. The
secret to the strong lemon fl avour is not only plenty of zest in
the batter, but lemon juice in the icing as well."
