Lemon & Elderflower Cupcakes

Todays recipe is adapted from my new favourite cupcake book, Eat Me!: The Stupendous, Self-raising World of Cupcakes and Bakes According to Cookie Girl. I like this one because it has cute, vintage inspired piccies, and the recipes are really unusual.

The icing on this cake was a very thin icing sugar, water and elderflower mixture. I decided to try a more fluffy frosting. This wasn't very successful to be honest - it was very runny, and had no taste of elderflower at all, despite trebling the quantities of elderflower stated in the original recipe. I have included the original icing recipe for the icing as I can't really see any way to make a thick frosting have an elderflower taste as either the butter or cream cheese completely overpowers it.

The lemon cake however was brilliant, the texture was really light and fluffy. The lemon taste was very mild however, so I have upped this a bit in the recipe below.

Ingredients

200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
225g granulated sugar
45g ground almonds
grated zest of 2 lemons
2 eggs
90ml sunflower oil
250ml low fat yoghurt
1/2 tbsp lemon essence
225g icing sugar
1 tsp elderflower cordial
4 tsp water

• Heat oven to 180C and line a muffin tray with 12 cases
• Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the sugar, almonds and grated lemon zest and mix.
• In a seperate bowl beat the eggs with the oil and yoghurt. Add the lemon essence. 
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir  until everything is smooth and combined. 
• Spoon evenly into the paper cases no more than 2/3 full (it rises a lot!) and bake for 20 minutes until a skewer placed in the centre comes out clean. 
• Place cupcakes on a wire rack to cool.
• Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the elderflower cordial. Add the water a little at a time to make a thick icing. 
• When the cupcakes are cool spoon a tablespoon of icing onto each one and spread evenly.

A Paddy's Day Treat, Chocolate Guiness Cupcakes

I've made these before as one big cake, but this was the first time I tried this recipe as cupcakes. Most of my adaptations to the recipe worked fine, however there wasn't enough frosting to get a decent 'head' on your pint of cupcake. The recipe below has been adapted to provide enough for all the cupcakes.

These have a very unique, earthy taste. The chocolate brings a much needed sweetness. All I can say is try them, everyone will love them, they're quick to make and a great all round 9/10 from everyone.

Makes 16 cupcakes.

Ingredients

250ml Guinness
250g unsalted butter
75g cocoa
400g caster sugar
1 x 142ml pot sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2 1/2teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
300g Philadelphia cream cheese
150g icing sugar
125ml double or whipping cream

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C.
• Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan, add the butter and heat until the butter is melted.
• Whisk in the cocoa and sugar. 
• In a seperate bowl beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown pan mixture.
• Whisk in the flour and bicarb.
• Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases, around 3/4 of the way up.
• Bake for 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. 
• Leave to cool for a few minutes before transfering the cases to the cooling rack.
• To make the icing sive the icing sugar into a bowl with the cream cheese and whisk till smooth and light.
• Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency.