Oranges and Lemons, Elections, Princes and Princesses and Other Odd Things

Wow, there's been a lot happening in the news lately!  We just finished watching the Election results, with our heads still reeling from the news of bin Laden and with visions of the beautiful Royal wedding still dancing through our heads.  That's a lot of news!

We invited Dean's parents to come for supper tonight as his mom, Donna, had had a birthday while I was working this weekend.  Even as I write, I'm still not sure which one of the 2 new recipes that I tried tonight I should share with you.

Okay.  I thought about it.  I know!  And maybe I'll share the other recipe with you tomorrow?

Because Donna is a very important lady to me, and because she loves lemon meringue pie, and because it was her birthday celebration, I decided to attempt a cupcake recipe that would (hopefully) be special for my dear mother in law! 

I had done an internet search a couple of mornings ago for this recipe.  I ended up selecting 3 recipes and combining them to get the results that worked for me today.  Don't be put off by the 3 part recipe.  The cupcake batter is truly easy to work with, and that's coming from me, a 'cake-mix-is-good-enough" cake baker.

I present to you:

LEMON MERINGUE CUPCAKES

Step 1 - Cupcakes:
3 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 Tbsp grated lemon zest (from about 3 lemons)
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk (guess where I bought mine?  Grin!)

Prehead oven to 325 F.  Line 2 muffin tins with paper liners.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
Crema butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping the bowl as needed.  Beat in zest and vanilla.
Add in flour in 3 batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and lemon juice; beat until combined after each addition.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups, about 3/4 full.  Bake about 25 minutes.  Cool completely.

Step 2 - Lemon Filling
I used store bought lemon curd (found in the jam aisle).  You could make homemade lemon curd or lemon pie filling.  The store bought curd is delicious and saved me some time today.
Using a paring knife, cut a cone shaped chunk out of each cupcake (about the circumference of your ring finger-ISH).  Fill each hole with lemon curd.

Step 3 - Meringue
3 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
Whip egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy.  Add sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks are formed.
Top each cupcake with meringue (I used a piping bag with no tip to pipe mine on.  You could simply use a knife to spread it on.)
Heat oven to 400 F and place cupcakes back in the oven until the meringue browns. 

Cool and serve.

Ideally, I would own one of those little kitchen torches that would brown the meringue without the cupcake being back in the oven as I found the bottom of the cupcakes darkened a little more than I wanted them to with being back in the oven for a few minutes.  OR maybe the broiler is okay for browning meringue?  I didn't have the opportunity to vigilantly watch them under the broiler so opted to not do that this time.

Also, I would have liked to have been more generous with the meringue and would consider making slightly more meringue than I did this time.  However, maybe spreading meringue with a knife instead of a piping bag might have spread the meringue further?

All in all, they turned out really well and the cupcake base recipe is a DEFINITE "make again" standard recipe.  I think it's probably a "no fail" cupcake recipe.  I don't consider myself terribly gifted at making cakes from scratch and was very pleased with these.  I expect that they will be even better tomorrow as the lemon flavor develops.

And, for heaven sakes, use fresh lemons and fresh lemon juice.  I made lemon bars last week with lemon from a bottle and I was "soured" by the experience...it had no flavor.  Fresh lemons, fresh lemon zest = lovely lemon flavor!

Happy baking!