As the rain starts to give way to the winter sunshine it’s time to start swapping some of those heavy chocolate delicacies and make way for some lighter treats.
While searching for something sweet and lemony I stumbled across this recipe for lemon meringue cupcakes. Having never made lemon curd or meringue before, this was something I definitely wanted to try.
Lemon Curd
After reading some reviews, I too decided to halve this recipe in case I ended up with too much of the curd.
115g chopped unsalted butter
240g caster sugar
2 ½ beaten eggs (whisk one before halving it)
Slightly more than 1/3 a cup of fresh lemon juice
The mixture should coat the back of your spoon
To cook the curd, melt the butter and sugar over a pot of simmering water. A handy hint if you’re doing this often with curd or even chocolate, you can get neat melting pot sets at some bargain stores. These will be made to fit within one another to ensure they don’t slip while you’re trying to stir.
Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice, cooking on medium heat and stirring constantly. The mixture will foam up before thickening. When the mixture completely coats the back of the spoon without dripping, take it off the heat and pop into the fridge to cool completely.
Lemon Cake
125g chopped unsalted butter
1 ¼ cups caster sugar
1 grated lemon rind
3 tbs lemon juice
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Next, cream the butter and sugar together until they’re light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon rind and juice before beating the eggs one at a time until combined. If using a mixer, make sure the butter combination properly mixes and doesn’t stick to the bottom.
Sift in the flour and baking powder and add into the mix alternatively with the milk. Your cake mix should be quite runny. Prepare your tray and patty cases and spoon the mixture in until it nearly meets the top.
Bake the cakes for 25 minutes or until lightly browned and cooked with a skewer. They will be quite dense and heavy after coming out of the oven and may still look undercooked even when ready. Cool on a wire rack.
Meringue
3 eggs whites
170g caster sugar
If you don’t have an egg divider, a neat trick I’ve learned is to break the egg then separate it in your hand, letting the egg white drip through your fingers and keeping the yolk in the palm of your hand.
Once you’ve separated your eggs, beat the whites until they’re stiff and form medium peaks in the mix. Add the caster sugar gradually, beating until glossy.
The firmer the peaks in your meringue mix, the more uprights your cupcake icing will be.
Decoration
This is where the recipe got a bit tricky for me as I’m terrible at piping icing.
Spoon the lemon curd into a hole in the top of the cakes
Cut out a small section of each cake using a knife or round with a teaspoon. Spoon the chilled lemon curd into the hole of the cake before piping your meringue over the top, covering the curd. If you want your meringue to peak into a pyramid on the top of your cake, make sure you scoop a bit of extra curd in to make it raised.
For non-pipers like me, meringue is quite smooth and easy to pipe, although I recommend using a thick piping nozzle as the mounds will then be larger and higher. If you don’t have any piping bags, sandwich bags with a small corner cut out for the piping nozzle work just as well.
Once the meringue is on your cakes, sprinkle some extra caster sugar over the top and put them back into the oven for 5 minutes, until the meringue is light brown and firm.
When taking your cupcakes out of the oven, I recommend using two hands as they will be quite delicate with the crispy meringue on top. Let the cakes cool again before serving or saving for later.
Meringue piping isn’t as hard as it looks
The leftovers
Even halving the lemon curd recipe, I still ended up with a bowl left over. So once the cupcakes were demolished, it was time to make a quick lemon meringue pie with what I still had in the kitchen.
1 ½ cups plain flour
1 heaped tbs brown sugar
125g butter
1 ½ tbs milk
This base recipe makes quite a lot, so if you’re like me and don’t want a lot of pastry, I’d suggest halving it.
To make the base, sift the flour and sugar together before rubbing them with the butter into a breadcrumb-like texture. Add the milk and mix until a dough is formed.
Roll the dough onto a piece of baking paper, before lining into your desired pie tray. Chill in the fridge for half an hour and preheat the oven to 180ºC.
If your using an already-cooked curd recipe and need to bake your pastry for longer, weigh the base down with pastry weights, beans or even rice, to stop it separating from the tray. Be sure to place another layer of baking paper between your pastry and desired weight to ensure you don’t end up with beans or rice in your base. Bake the pastry for 15 minutes with the weights, before taking them out and baking for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the base is crisp and lightly browned.
Once cooled, heat the oven to 190ºC and make another batch of meringue, using the same recipe for your cupcakes. Spoon in the leftover lemon curd and heap the new batch of meringue on top, forming peaks with the back of a spoon. Bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, or until your meringue is lightly browned and firm.
And there you have it! Two spring time desserts with all the ingredients of one. If you don’t have any brown sugar for the base of the pie, check out a conversion chart to use left over caster sugar or another kind of sugar to give it that sweeter edge.
