Oranges and Lemons said the bells of St. Clements

This post has absolutely naff all to do with St. Clements and neither do the cupcakes I frosted today apart from the fact that they are orange and lemon flavoured!  Even though the weather isn't perfect, there is nothing wrong with having cirtussy summery cupcakes to celebrate a birthday with!

This weekend is my boyfriend's mum's 50th birthday party, so we came all the way down to Windsor from the North to celebrate - and make cupcakes for her.  She asked me last year to make these for her and in all honesty it doesn't seem two minutes ago since she did!

Using a plain vanilla cupcake - find the recipe here - of which there were 64 of them in total (excluding the one I dropped on the floor!!) I then iced 32 with orange butter cream frosting and the other 32 with lemon butter cream frosting...

- Orange butter cream frosting - enough for 32 -

Ingredients:
1100g icing sugar
340g Lurpak unsalted butter at room temperature
x1 tbsp orange flavouring
Grated zest of x2 oranges
x1 whole cap yellow colouring
x2 drops red colouring

Method:
1. Gently grate the orange zest using a fine cheese grater - similar to the one you would use to grate parmesan - in to a small bowl.
2. Add and mix all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl - the longer you whisk/hand mix it the fluffier and lighter it gets.
3. Spread on to your cakes with a flat knife, or using a piping bag, pipe the frosting on to your cupcake - I used a star shaped nozzle and piped the frosting on in a circular motion.

- Lemon butter cream frosting - enough for 32 -
Ingredients:
1100g icing sugar
340g Lurpak unsalted butter at room temperature
Juice of x1 lemon
Grated zest of x2 lemons
x2 caps of yellow colouring

Method:

1. Mix the lemon juice and 100g of icing sugar together in a small bowl.

2. Add and mix all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl - the longer you whisk/hand mix it the fluffier and lighter it gets.

3. Spread on to your cakes with a flat knife, or using a piping bag, pipe the frosting on to your cupcake - I used a star shaped nozzle and piped the frosting on in a circular motion.

Baking Adventures - Allergies.

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Everyone learnt to bake cupcakes at primary or with their mums using the most simple recipe ever:

50g Self-Raising Flour

50g Caster Sugar

50g Butter 

1 egg

Ever since then I have been mucking around with the recipe and altering it to make fluffy, soft moist cakes that can withstand life outside a container for more than a day; mainly because my pet hate is dry cake.  I will assume there is a large portion of the world who are meticulous with their food and share my emotional inclinations towards cake.  

In recent months, I have been experimenting with cupcake toppings, I'm sure most of you know that there are very many frostings to choose from and that you can use any colours, and any flavourings in them.  My favourites are ganache, butter cream, royal icing, chocolate frosting and cream frosting.  Last week when I made cupcakes I wanted pink vanilla butter cream to top them, but I was cautioned by my mum as she is allergic to cochineal.  This next tip is handy if you want to make colourful cupcakes or topping but have friends and family with allergies.

I ended up using our coffee/cocktail syrup which is the 'Monin Organic Syrup'.  As an alternative to pink colouring I used grenadine syrup which is more commonly used in a 'Shirley Temple'.  The product is quite thick so it does not particularly alter the texture of the icing or frosting that you are making and you only need to use a cap full.  If you want to use the syrup as a flavouring as well as a colouring just keep adding cap fulls of the syrup until you can just about taste the flavour.  I say 'just about' because this is a syrup and too much of it will make for one sickly topping.  After the topping has been spread, piped or whatever you guys do to get your topping on to your cakes, add some sprinkles, slices of fruit, sweets or just simply dust some icing sugar on top for that classic cupcake look.  I went for sprinkles and some glace cherries.

I hope this was a handy tip for anyone who bakes. 

Natasha.