Gloverly Cupcakes

This week is national cupcake week, possibly the best week of the year! I have been baking lots of cupcakes recently in particular for the hen parties I have been to this month. The 1st of 3 hen parties was for my lovely friend Anna who I met through our running club, she is getting married at the end of the month (look out for the blog about her wedding cake next month). I decided to do something different for her cupcakes rather than making the usual silly rude ones.

I love using seasonal ingredients, so I decided to make lavender and lemon cupcakes which also fitted in well with the colour scheme. I made these gluten free so that everyone at the hen party could have one. Here is the recipe:

Cupcakes (adapted from Waitrose)

250g butter

250g lavender caster sugar

4 large eggs

4 tbsp milk

300g Doves Farm gluten free self raising flour

2 lemons – zest only (save the juice for the syrup)

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin tin with 12 cases.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time beating thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides to ensure it is well mixed.

Fold in the flour, once incorporated add the lemon zest.

Divide the mixture between the 12 cases. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until they are lightly browned on top and spring back when pressed (and a skewer comes out clean). I usually check them and turn them around after 15 minutes.

Take out the tins immediately and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Syrup:

150g lavender caster sugar

2 lemons – juice saved from earlier

Add the sugar and lemon juice to a small pan and warm until the sugar has melted.

Once the cakes have cooled drizzle 2 tsps of syrup over the top of each cupcake.

Lemon Buttercream (from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days)

500g icing sugar

160g butter

50ml milk

1 lemon zest and juice

Beat the icing sugar and butter together on a very slow speed until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. I always put a tea towel over the top of my KitchenAid to prevent icing sugar going everywhere! Then slowly add the lemon juice and lemon zest. Once it’s all been added increase the speed and beat on high for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.

The theme for the decorations came from Anna and Matt’s wedding invite and then hen party invites that we’re all themed in similar colours with a bicycle on.

The decorations were very simple, I kept a small amount of uncoloured buttercream, enough for 2 cupcakes and then mixed up 4 different shades of purple/pink buttercream. Using a pallet knife I smoothed on the buttercream and using the tip of the knife I made a small dip in the top.

For the bike I used black fondant and added some vegetable fat so that it was very soft, I then used a special gadget to squeeze the fondant into long pieces which I could then shape into the wheels and frame of the bike.

I then used thin brown string to make string for the balloons and set them up to make the picture.