Lemon cupcakes

I wanted to give something to some family friends for bringing me to a rally yesterday. I also wanted to treat my cousins who are in Belgium for a weekend. This lead to me baking up a batch of cupcakes~

I made them in 2 half batches (with my little cousin's help), due to restricted baking space in the oven. I made my basic vegan cake recipe, adding about 1.5 tsp of lemon zest to the dry ingredients, and subbing 2 tbs of lemon juice for the vinegar per half recipe.

My brother had giving me a pastry filling syringe last Christmas, and I wanted to try if it would work with this recipe. So I made some vegan lemon curd (recipe below). Verdict: it only worked for the taller cupcakes, and was not much of a filling, more like a moistening, as this recipe does not create a hole in the middle like choux dough would.

I mixed some leftover lemon juice and zest into my frosting recipe. Due to my decorative piping syringe tip going missing, I had to borrow my cousin's, which I was not accustomed to. This led to uglier than expected frosting arrays, and I ended up going with my original idea of piping chocolate hearts on top, using my decorating pen.

I made a total of 24 cupcakes, 12 of which were in paper cups, for easy delivery. Some went to family friends, some to cousins next door, and the others for my visiting relatives and my parents.

The only non-vegan aspects are the frosting and chocolate (dark).

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Cupcakes

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 3 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup unsweetened plain soymilk
• 1/2 cup neutral oil
• 2 tbs lemon juice

     Lemon Curd

• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (~1 lemon)
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• pinch of salt

     Frosting

• 2 1/2 tbs flour
• 1/2 cup milk (I used soymilk)
• vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 3 tbs sugar
• some lemon juice and zest

  Procedure

     Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. Line tin(s).
3. In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients
5. Pour the wet into the dry and wisk until just combined. Do not over mix.
6. Pour into tin(s) and bake ~15 mins for cupckaes, or 25 mins for a cake, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

     Lemon Curd

1. In a saucepan, whisk together water, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until the cornstarch is dissolved.
2. Bring mixture to boil, then simmer until thickened stirring constantly.
3. Add in lemon juice and zest.
4. Let mix cool and thicken.

     Frosting

1. In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk. Place on stovetop and heat until thickened. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Add in some vanilla.
3. In a mixing bowl, whip butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add in the completely cooled  milk-flour mix and beat until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream.
5. Whip in lemon juice and zest. 
6. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes of choice.