Cupcakes with lemon and orange-passionfruit icing

Tomorrow we are having a fundraising morning tea, to raise money for the Christchurch earthquake victims.  Everyone is bringing something to eat, and donating $5.

I know it's not bread, but making cupcakes is baking, so I thought I'd write about it.  I have a vague memory of making cupcakes with my grandmother, who was an amazingly good baker.  I don't think I've made them since because I seem to associate them with muffins.  I hate muffins, they're thick, pasty, and sit in your stomach like concrete, and it annoys me people eat them because they think they're healthy.  They have fat and sugar in them, like cupcakes, but at least cupcakes are honest and don't pretend to be anything they're not.

This recipe is from Nigella Lawson.

Ingredients:


125 self raising flour
125 castor sugar
125 unsalted butter
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp milk

Put everything except the milk in the food processor and whizz until smooth.  Add the milk a little at a time, with the motor running, until you get a soft, dropping consistency.  Scrape the mixture evenly between 12 cupcake paper pans and smooth out.  Bake at 200 C until golden.

Just a little word about butter.  Australian butter is no good for baking.  If you live here, your best bet is Lurpak Danish butter.  The consistency of Australian and European unsalted butter is completely different for some reason.  I'm not being a butter snob but for cooking purposes go European.

Icing


I've included two icing recipes, both inspired by Maggie Beer.

Lemon butter icing

50g soft unsalted butter
Zest of 1 lemon
30ml lemon juice or a little more to taste
215g icing sugar, sifted

Orange-passionfruit icing


50g soft unsalted butter
Zest of 1 orange
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp passionfruit pulp, with or without seeds
215g icing sugar, sifted

The method for both icing recipes is the same, mix everything together and stir until smooth.  Spread on the cupcakes when they are cool.

I've heard it said one easy way to tell apart an English person and an Australian is that the English won't eat passionfruit seeds.  I'm not sure if this is true but I'm going to use them in my version.

Lemon on the left, passionfruit-orange on the right