Baby Shower Cupcakes

Betty was on assignment. Well, in actual fact she gave me the assignment as she was invited to a baby shower for one of her best friends. I was to make cupcakes and had free range of what I could do and because the mother-to-be already knew her baby was a gorgeous little boy I decided I wanted the colour blue to appear somewhere, but where? Cupcake wrappers, icing or blue sprinkles perhaps? I did do a little research and there were so many great ideas out there and very clever ones I might add, whilst the flavour of the cupcakes were thought up by Betty.

The first was a caramel mud cake with a simple butter cream icing and the second one was to be a lemon one with some lemon curd put inside the actual cupcake itself. You will find the lemon cupcake recipe on our blog under "Lemon Meringue Cupcakes" but I didn't put the meringue on top of these particular cupcakes. A simple lemon cream cheese icing with a touch of yellow coloring to give it the coloured look I was after.

Caramel Mud Cake
125g butter, chopped coarsely
100g white eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup
2/3 cup milk
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup self-raising flour
1 egg
Butter cream
90g butter softened
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 170 degrees/340F. Line 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases.

Stir butter, chocolate, sugar, syrup and milk in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Transfer mixture to medium bowl, cool 15 minutes.

Whisk sifted flours into chocolate mixture, then whisk in egg. Drop 1/4 cups of mixture into paper cases. Bake about 30 minutes. Stand cakes in pan 5 minutes before turning top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.

For the butter cream, beat butter in small bowl with electric mixer until as white as possible, beat in sifted icing sugar and milk, in two batches. (You can tint the icing with any colour you like).

For the decorations on top of this particular cupcake I made little blue rattles.

For the end of the rattle it was a little white chocolate called a Raffaello and the stick part was a packet of cake pop sticks that I cut to size. I then wrapped ribbon around each stick and used my hot glue gun so the ribbon didn't unwind.

For the Lemon cupcake I tinted the icing with a touch of yellow and used some persian fairy floss for the tops of each cake.

Persian fairy floss comes in a variety of different flavours and it's best arranged on your cupcake just before serving them.

Enjoy! M x

Lemon curd tarts

There is the old question about what meal you would choose if it was your last but I've decided to not think about that. Instead (and yes I know this is odd) I have thought long and hard about what flavour I would choose if I had only one flavour choice left on this planet and chocolate wasn't invented. I had to think outside the square for once because B will just roll her eyes and give me 'the look' if it were something chocolate.

So if I can't choose chocolate.....I'm going with lemon! A good lemon tart is always a great start for this flavour and if you have been following our cooking journey you would have seen or even made the Lemon Meringue cupcakes. Speaking of following, Betty and I have been avid followers of most cooking shows (I think that obsession may have come from our parents and their obsession with Lifestyle Food channel). One show that now has all my three kids watching each night is MasterChef. We are glued each and every night to the television watching the creative dishes being cooked by the contestants.

This particular lemon curd tart was made on MasterChef Australia Series 3 by the most brilliant guest chef herself, Maggie Beer, and I was recently given the Series 3 cookbook by a friend for my Birthday so of course I had to start sampling it's wares.

This recipe was pretty easy and I had never made pastry with sour cream before so I was intrigued. It really was crisp and light and yes the key is NOT to over work it. The tops of these tarts are covered with icing sugar and heated with a blow torch but if you don't have one you can try putting them under a grill like I have on the odd occasion, before I owned a blow torch as it does the same thing or if you want you can just serve with the lemon curd. (the thin layer of toffee is really worth it though).

I have few different sized tart tins and in this recipe it recommends six 7cm ones, mine were roughly 11cm's and I only used 4 but had to make double the lemon curd mixture to ensure I had enough to fill my tart shells.

You will need -  Lemon Curd

4 egg yolks

75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar

3 teaspoons lemon zest (about 3 lemons were used for the zest)

80ml (1/3 cup) lemon juice, strained

40g unsalted butter, chopped

Pastry:

150g (1 cup) plain flour

60g unsalted butter, chopped

60g sour cream

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Lightly grease six 7cm tart pans with removable bases.

To make the curd, whisk yolks and sugar in a small saucepan until pale.

Add lemon zest, juice and butter and place over a very low heat. I did this in a double boiler (I had a bowl over a simmering saucepan of water) Cook , whisking continuously, for 7 minutes or until curd coats the back of a spoon. Once it's thick enough place in a bowl, stirring to release the heat. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and leave to cool.

To make the pastry , process flour and butter in a food processor until mixture resembles crumbs. Add sour cream and process until mixture just comes together.

 Divide the dough into equal portions for your tart shells and shape into discs. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Place each pastry disc between two sheets of baking paper and roll out to fit pans. Gently ease into pans and trim away excess pastry.

 Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Prick bases with a folk. Line with baking paper and fill with baking beads, dried beans or rice. Bake for 10 minutes, them remove paper and beads and bake for 5 minutes or until crisp and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Fill with lemon curd and dust gently with icing sugar. Using a blowtorch, gently heat the icing sugar until golden and caramelized. 

Yum! M x