Little Lemon Cakes

Yesterday my two friends came over and we make cupcakes. We actually had about 12 cupcakes, but we aren't the best meringue pipers. I was the worse. But Gemma actually managed to do one perfectly (right at the end, I might add). But I won't show you my rocky, dangerous mountains of meringue!! Nestled inside these little cupcakes, are little cavities of lemon curd!! Hidden, a little secret suprise for the lucky eater. At the end, we took photos of Gemma's amazingly piped mountain, for each others blogs. My other friend Hayley doesn't have one yet. I'll let you know when she does. The photo above is actually on her t shirt, not fabric. But I wouldn't mind if it was!!

So now you have heard about my day, do you want to move on to the recipe.....

Little Lemon Cakes. Makes 12 (regular size). Recipe from Julie Le Clerc, Little Cafe Cakes

Ingredients

1 and a ½ cups self raising flour

¾ cup caster sugar

150g salted butter, softened

3 eggs, lightly beaten

4 tblsp milk

juice and zest of 2 lemons

lemon curd (below)

meringue (below)

1 Preheat oven to 175C. Prepare 12 paper cases.

2 Place first six ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Spoon mixture to ¾ fill cases. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 120C.

3 Once cold enough to handle, cut out a large cavity from the top of each cupcake and discard. Fill cavity with lemon curd. Pipe small mounds of meringue on top of lemon curd. Bake for 10 minutes further to set meringue.

Lemon Curd (we cheated, and brought our lemon curd. But this recipe is good as well)

75g salted butter

½ cup sugar

Juice and zest of two lemons

2 eggs, beaten

1 Place butter, sugar, lemon juice and zest into a double boiler. Stir over heat until sugar has dissolved. Whisk warm mixture into beaten eggs and return to double boiler. Cook over a low heat until mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon.

Meringue

2 egg whites

½ cup caster sugar

1. Whisk egg whites until stiff. Add 1 tablespoonful of the sugar and whisk until
incorporated. Whisk in remaining sugar until mixture is glossy.

Makes 12

We also sometimes just make the lemon cakes and add creme frache (hope that is the spelling) icing on top. Just as delicious but for a more fun process do the meringue.