Lemon Cupcakes

I made these for a friend's birthday party yesterday. I followed the recipe from the Hummingbird bakery cookbook, however introducing a few changes of my own (i.e. I put less sugar in the sponge mix, to balance the sweetness of the icing; and included lemon juice in the latter, to make it more tangy). I also left out the yellow food colouring for the icing and chose use blue sugar flowers and purple edible glitters as decorations.

INGREDIENTS (makes 12 cupcakes)

For the sponge

• 120 gr plain flour
• 100 gr caster sugar
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 tablespoons of grated lemon zest
• 40 gr unsalted butter at room temperature
• 120 ml whole milk
• 1 egg

For the lemon icing

• 250 gr icing sugar, sifted
• 80 gr usalted butter at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon of grated lemon zest
• 25 ml whole milk
• the juice of half a lemon

Preheat the oven at 170°C. Beat or whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and butter together until they reach a sandy consistency.

Beat in the egg then gradually pour in the milk, until the igredients are all well incorporated. Do not overmix.

Place 12 cupcake cases in a muffin tray and spoon the mixture in. Bake them for 20/25 minutes or until a skewer comes clean when inserted in the centre of the cupcakes. Let them cool a little in the muffin tray, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the lemon icing, beat together the icing sugar and butter, then add the milk, the lemon zest and lemon juice - continue beating for about 5 minutes, until the icing is light and fluffy.

Spread the icing on the cupcakes, then decorate them as you like (I sprinkled them with edible glitters first, then topped them with a sugar flower).