This is the fourth post from our series of reviewing Hummingbird’s ‘Cake Days’ book, and I couldn’t wait to try my hand at their Lemonade Cupcakes which is part of their Summer range of cupcakes.
This cupcake recipe includes the addition of lemon zest and also lemonade syrup to make a fresh tasting lemon tanginess with a hint of fizz!
For the lemonade syrup I decided to go with a Lemonade Syrup by Soda Stream, if you’re in the UK then you can purchase this via Lakeland. The book doesn’t give any guidance apart from saying it was part of their Soda range, therefore I assumed Soda Stream would be the best bet, however you can make your own home made lemonade syrup if you search online.
There is a hint of lemonade fizz in the sponges, however this becomes more apparent in the butter cream. Overall this was lemonade loveliness, combined with a moist lemony zest sponge. The colour of the frosting was a little pale, so I added a speck of yellow colouring to enhance the colour. I also added fruit pastille sweets to finish them off. Any fizzy sweets would do, and to make it more fun you can add popping candy in the frosting.
Recipe
For the Cupcakes
80g (3oz) unsalted butter softened
280g (10oz) Caster Sugar
240g (8. 5oz) plain flour
1tbsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp grated lemon zest
1tbsp lemonade syrup
240ml (8.5fl oz) Whole Milk
2 large eggs
For the Frosting
2tbsp lemonade syrup
50ml (1 ¾ fl oz) Whole Milk
500g ( 1lb 2oz) Icing Sugar
160g (5.5oz) Softened unsalted butter
1tsp grated lemon zest
Lemon jelly sweets.
Method
1/ Pre – heat the oven to 190C (375f) Gas Mark 5 and put cases in your cupcake tin (use a muffin tin with muffin cases).
2/ Mix together the butter, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder and zest using a mixer until it looks like breadcrumbs.
3/ Place your milk in a jug and add to it the eggs and lemonade syrup and mix together by hand.
4/ Then add the milk mixture gradually to the dry mixture on a low speed. Turn up the speed to medium once the mixtures have been added together, until the batter is smooth.
5/ Pipe or spoon the batter into the cases until two thirds full and place in the oven for 18-20 minutes. You’ll find you’ll probably have left over batter which you can use to fill more cases.
6/ Once baked, place on a cooling wire and wait until they’re completely cool before adding any frosting.
7/ For the frosting, add the lemonade syrup to the milk and mix. With a mixer whisk the butter, icing sugar and zest together until you have a sandy texture. Pour in the milk mixture into the butter mixture and mix on a low speed. Once all combined, mix on a high speed until you have a light butter cream.
8/ With a palette knife, add the frosting to each cupcake (remember they need to be cool first) and finish off with a jelly sweet.
Enjoy!
