The Ankle Biter Eats!

This year when I asked Boo what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she said “Pink!”. Pink cake with pink icing. I wanted to make something with natural colour and flavour, so I tried a recipe made of raspberry muffin bottoms with a lemon and raspberry icing on top. I also decided for mini-cupcakes, but since I had a bit more than enough batter for 24 mini cupcakes, I made 2 regular size cupcakes in a couple of ramekins, and they were great too—they just needed to stay in the oven a few more minutes.

Recipes

Raspberry Cupcakes
This is a modified version of Emeril Legasse’s recipe for Blueberry-Raspberry Muffins with Streusel Topping minus the blueberries and the streusel. The lemon zest and the hint of cinnamon make this a great recipe.
Ingredients
2 cups cake flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cup fresh raspberries (or less)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place 24 mini-cupcake metal cups with paper liners intact on a cookie sheet or else line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. If you use ramekins, grease the inside of the ramekins with butter and dust them with flour.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Beat the softened butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy and light. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time. Add the buttermilk and lemon zest and mix to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir just to combine. (Batter will still be somewhat lumpy; do not overmix.) Gently fold in the raspberries so the berries do not break open and pour into the prepared muffin tins. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes for mini cupcakes or 20 minutes for standard cupcakes.

Let cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove and cool on wire racks.

Lemon Frosting

Ingredients
3/4 cup (6 ounces) cream cheese, chilled
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash of salt
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Approximately 1/4 cup Raspberry Drizzle (optional)

To prepare the frosting, combine cream cheese, 2 tablespoons butter, lemon rind, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and dash of salt in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at high speed until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar; beat at low speed just until blended (do not overbeat).

To turn the Lemon Frosting into Pink Lemonade Frosting, beat in a small amount of Raspberry Drizzle until you get the colour you want.

Raspberry Drizzle

Ingredients
1/2 cup of Lemon Frosting
1/2 cup of fresh raspberries

To prepare the drizzle, place the raspberries in a wire sieve over a mixing bowl. Using a spatula, press the raspberries through a wire sieve with spaces wide enough that you can press the berry juice through leaving the seeds behind. Stir small amounts of Lemon Frosting bit by bit until you get the consistency you want.

When the cupcakes have cooled, frost the tops with the Pink Lemonade Frosting. Use a small spoon to drizzle on the Raspberry Drizzle. Top with one perfect raspberry.

Notes

You need about 2 of the 12 oz. baskets of raspberries for the muffins, frosting, and the garnish.

It was tricky getting the cupcake batter in the mini muffin tins. Normally, you fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full, but I filled them nearly to the top because the raspberries take up so much of the space. You could cut the amount of raspberries in half if you’d like more cake with just a bit of raspberry.

I’ve been trying to decide what sort of cupcakes to make for my two-year-old daughter’s birthday party this year, and I decided on fairy cupcakes. A sparkling sugar tower of pink and lavender cupcakes topped with fairy wands, candles, and some lovely Tinker Bell cake toppers.

Since I like providing a choice and my cupcake stand has 3 tiers, I altered my theme a bit to something that works for 2 year olds and adults—Devil or Angel cupcakes.

The top tier has chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse and cherry filling, and lots of pink and lavender buttercream frosting.

The middle tier has white cupcakes with lemon curd filling and lemon buttercream frosting.

The bottom tier has chocolate cupcakes—I got the devil’s food cake recipe from the Joy of Cooking—with chocolate mouse filling—from Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Cherry Trifle recipe, which I love, but have gained too many pounds eating—and dried cherries soaked in Grand Marnier. I like tart, sour cherries.

All three layers were topped with sugar cookies frosted with butter cream and sprinkled with sparkling sugar. Next time I am making fairy wands, I will use a smaller cookie cutter for the stars. But I do think the large stars would be perfect for Le Petit Prince cupcakes.

I made these cupcakes to go with my fairy cupcakes, but I thought they could be really nice for a Le Petit Prince party theme.

These are white cupcakes with lemon curd filling, lemon buttercream frosting, and large sugar-cookie stars with buttercream frosting and yellow sparkling sugar sprinkled on top.

Another birthday is coming up, and I thought it would be nice to make cupcakes for the party.

Last year I made Lemon Meringue cupcakes. They were very cute. Although my meringue decorating could use some practise, the meringue covered the cupcake in unruly peaks which I thought was perfect for my one year old. Unfortunately, the cakes were sweeter than I like and a bit dry.

So for her birthday this year, I’ve decided to try out a few different recipes beforehand to see which ones I liked the best.

I started out with a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated for a golden cupcake mix called their Best Cupcake Recipe. Although their thoroughness of their testing sounded promising, and the cakes were fairly tasty, but not what I was looking for. They were a bit dry, and a bit eggy, and they didn’t have the longevity I was looking for—they were best the same day.

Lemon Sponge Cupcakes
Then I decided to try Joy of Cooking which I consider to be a stand by. I decided to experiment with their recipe for Lemon Sponge which they said could be baked in a square tin or in custard cups. I figured if I used the metal lined cupcake liners inside a cupcake tin, that would be good enough. It might have been a good idea, unfortunately, I decided to try mixing it in the food processor to save time. This was a disaster. They came out flat and rubbery instead of spongey. The tops were light and airy though. I might give this another go. The recipe said to serve them with whipped cream and maybe a bit of raspberry sauce or just dusted with powdered sugar. Either way ought to be pretty good.

At this point I got lucky and found a recipe for “Aliece Wells Lemon Cheese Layer Cake”. I’d already made lemon curd which I adapted from a recipe in Feast: Food to Celebrate Life by Nigella Lawson and I’d been thinking of making Royal Icing, but I was nervous about using raw eggs, so the Seven-Minute Frosting sounded perfect. I have to say that the cakes came out exactly how I wanted. OK, they would have been better if I’d not used all the batter - the recipe is for 27 cupcakes which I halved, but I couldn’t resist using the extra batter in my 12 cupcakes. But the taste was moist and delicious, and they tasted just as good the next day.

The Seven-Minute Frosting was a disaster. The frosting is supposed to rise when you beat it like normal egg whites, but it didn’t rise at all. It was a humid day, so that may be it. But maybe I should have left the icing on the stove instead of taking it off after it had reached 170°. It tasted nice, but I ended up using whipped cream to ice the cupcakes instead.

So my next quest is for the perfect icing for lemony cupcakes.

Recipes

Lemon Curd
Ingredients
1 cup lemon juice from fresh squeezed lemons
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter

Melt the butter in a double boiler. Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together. When the butter has melted stir in the sugar-egg mixture and the lemon juice. Keep cooking, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened. Then take it off the heat.

This makes a very tangy—but in a good way—lemon curd. It’s also a bit runnier than Nigella’s which gets it’s stiffness from using a full stick of butter.

Best Cupcake Recipe
I adapted a wonderful recipe that I found online called Aliece Well’s Lemon Cheese Layer Cake Recipe for the cupcakes. I wanted them more lemony and I didn’t need so many. But I was very happy with the results. See my version of this recipe.

Very Lemony Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Frosting
When cupcakes and lemon curd have cooled, use a pastry bag fitted with a medium round tip to push a hole in the top of each cupcake and fill with the lemon curd letting some of the curd flow on the top of the cupcake in a small circle. Use another pastry bag to pipe some whipped cream in a curly, daisy-like border.

Lemon Cupcakes with Whipped Cream on the left and with runny Seven-Minute Frosting on the right