Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes – Gluten Free

These are properly syrupy, sticky and sweet cupcakes with a lovely lemon tang – I didn’t start out intending for them to be gluten free but they are which is a great bonus! I made them by replacing the flour for ground almonds – which makes the cakes light and slightly nutty as well as gluten free.

I sprinkled the cupcakes with sugar before baking for an extra crisp top, and then drizzled them with a generous amount of syrup when the came out of the oven.

Makes 12 muffins / large cupcakes

175g unsalted butter
200g sugar
200g ground almonds
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder
3 eggs

Cream the butter and sugar together til well combined, then whisk in eggs, fold in almonds, zest and baking powder. You can add a dash of vanilla extract here too.  Spoon into cupcake cases, leaving about 1cm from the top of the case. Sprinkle each cake with sugar, be generous!

Bake in the oven for 10 – 15mins til cooked through, they will be squidger than normal cakes but they will be cooked through. They won’t rise to a dome like a flour cake either, mainly cos of the sugar topping too, but the baking powder will help them along a little bit.

for the drizzle:
juice of 2 lemons
approx 3-4 tablespoons of sugar

mix the drizzle ingredients together til you have a consistency like double cream, set aside while the cupcakes cook. as soon as the cupcakes come out prick them a few times each with a fork, and then drizzle some of the syrup over the top.

Leave to cool and then eat! These are so soft and syrupy that they make a lovely pudding with some creme fraiche or ice cream.

Ginger Molasses Cupcakes – Happy National Cupcake Week!

Happy National Cupcake Week everyone!

I believe this week is just promotional for a baking magazine but it is a good enough excuse for me to bake cupcakes, so yay!

As the weather is getting colder and Autumn is approaching I thought I’d make something comforting and spicy. I had some muscovado molasses sugar in the cupboard and ginger seemed like a good match, a bit like sticky toffee pudding without the dates. I have iced the cupcakes with a light lemon cream frosting which goes really well against the rich sponge.

Ginger Molasses Cupcakes

 Makes 12 large cupcakes

100g butter, softened
175g dark muscovado or muscovado molasses sugar
2 eggs
dash of vanilla extract
zest of half a lemon – optional
175g self raising flour
175ml buttermilk or whole milk
1 heaped teaspoon of ground ginger – I opted for ground as I didn’t want stringy bits of fresh ginger in my cakes.

Mix together your butter and sugar until fully combined, you may need to blend it slightly to combine as the sugar is thicker and denser. Whisk in your eggs one by one using a hand whisk or an electric one. Then add in the vanilla, ginger and lemon if using.
Alternately add a small amount of your flour (sifted in) and buttermilk/milk til all of it is used up.

Fill cupcake cases up 1cm from the top, you want nice full cupcakes, and bake in a preheated medium oven for 15-20minutes until cooked through.

Light Lemon Cream Icing

Ices 12 cupcakes

100ml of double cream
juice of one lemon
3 tabelspoons of icing sugar

Whisk your cream with an electric whisk until it forms soft peaks, then slowly with a hand whisk combine in your icing sugar and lemon juice. Taste for sweetness/lemonness, add more to your taste.
Chill in the fridge until the cupcakes are ready to ice. These cupcakes are best iced just before you eat them so the cakes don’t get soggy. The icing will keep in a bowl in the fridge for a couple of days so you can ice as you go!
I topped mine with some cute little blackberries that I picked in my garden, they worked really well with the creamy gingery cupcake.

Yum! I hope you bake something yummy for national cupcake week.

Deepa
x

ps – apologies for the quality of the pics, it is getting dark in the evenings! 😦

Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes

I think my life may be complete, I have made a purple cake batter. Purple is my favourite colour, some of you may have realised this already – purple clothes, purple food, purple sheets 😉

I was given some beetroots from my colleague who grows them, I was a bit stuck for what to do with them in a savoury way. I remembered the lovely recipe featured on River Cottage for beetroot brownies. Instead I popped the nice fresh beetroot into a nice chocolate cake batter and studded it with blackberries and raspberries. Purple batter!

You can still taste the beetroot in this recipe, some people may not like this but I think it is unusual and very yummy. Beetroot is mainly used in cake and brownies for moistness, and that definitely was there too.

You can adapt this recipe and use courgettes as well, we have lots on our plant at the moment so this is something I am definitely going to try. Of course the batter won’t be purple though 😉

Chocolate Beetroot Berry Cupcakes
makes 12 muffin/cupcake sized cakes

150g butter
150g brown or white sugar
2 large eggs
3 medium sized beetroots, peeled and grated
100g good quality cocoa powder
50g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
berries, about 2 or 3 per cupcake.

Cream together your butter and sugar then add in the eggs one at a time and beat until fluffy.
Sift in your cocoa powder, flour and baking powder. Then fold in your beetroot carefully.

Spoon one heaped tablespoon into each cupcake case, pop a couple of berries in and then spoon over another tablespoon of mixture. Add another berry on the top.
Bake in a preheated oven at gas mark 6 / 200c / 400f  for 15 – 20 minutes until cooked through.

These are gorgeous whilst still warm, very chocolatey, because they are fairly moist they don’t keep for more than a few days, but I don’t think that will be a problem in any household! 😉