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.

Chilled and filled lemon cupcakes

These chilled and filled lemon cupcakes were inspired by the lovely weather that we are seeing more often these days, and I thought that a citrussy but also refrigerated cake would be more refreshing than say chocolate!

This is just a standard cupcake with a hint of vanilla to banish that doughy/flour taste, it also has a lemon curd center and then  a lemon butter cream frosting on top.  I got the lemon butter cream frosting recipe from my Hummingbird Bakery Book but the recipe turned out to be a dud which used artificial lemon flavourings, doesn't produce enough frosting for the 12 cakes it said it did, and it also takes a decade to set (I learnt this from some other cupcakes I made)! So, I altered it slightly to make a more natural tasting frosting with subtle lemon undertones rather than an over powering artificial flavour. 

Ingredients for lemon butter cream:
350g Icing Sugar
100g Lurpak Butter
Juice of half a medium sized lemon - remember to get rid of the pips!
2/3 cap fulls of semi-skimmed milk

Method:
1. Bake the cupcakes.  This is only a plain cupcake so any recipe that you prefer will do just fine and only add one or two drops of vanilla extract.  Bake, and leave to cool on a tray.
2. Whilst they are cooling make your butter cream, using the ingredients above.  Simply add all the ingredients in to a bowl or food processor and mix.
3. When the cakes have cooled it is time to fill them.  Using a piping bag filled with 2 tbsps of lemon curd, plant the pipe in to the center of the cupcake (as far down as you like) and squeeze the lemon curd in to the center, slowly pulling the pipe up and out of the cake as you go.
4. Ice the cupcakes with the butter cream as you see fit.  Add chopped or grated lemon on top for decoration.
5. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes and then eat :)