Cupcakes and Chrysanthemums

     I baked cupcakes!!! The exclamation and the feeling of pride (but, like, the humble kind that would facilitate further learning) that come with it are so real. But what doesn’t feel real is I’ve managed to get this blog filled with pictures of food that I made and the recipes I’ve put my time and energy in researching and framing and sometimes, building up whenever I felt like the Internet wasn’t doing me any good. You can only go so far when it comes to following record from the Internet, real fun starts when you take matters in your own hands and experiment with the raw materials you have at home and the ones you acquire from the garden. Although, garden fresh ingredients were used in this particular recipe, this acts as a subtle farewell to my experimentation of all the other, previous recipes ( and hopefully many others in the future when I get inspired to cook and post about the food again hopefully when the skies clear away or when I invest in artificial lighting equipment). 

Alrighty then, back to the cupcakes we go. The last time I smelled freshly baked cupcakes at home was over a decade ago. Laced with the lovely citrus aroma of lemons, sweet-smelling vanilla and rich powdered cocoa, I made three batches of vanilla, lemon and chocolate cupcakes, they were fluffy to the touch and soft to bite into. Baking is getting more fun by day and I can’t wait to bake these again soon! 

Ingredients for the batter for each of the three flavours:

Flour - 400g

Butter- 200g

Sugar- 200g

Baking powder -  quarter tablespoon

Eggs - 4 eggs

Ingredients for the frosting:

Lemon juice

Powdered sugar - 150g

Butter - 300g

Procedure:

For the lemon variant-  beat lemon zest and sugar in a food processor so they mix and then mix with the rest of the dry ingredients; for chocolate, mix cocoa powder with sugar until it is sweet enough, and for vanilla, use vanilla beans or essence, although I'd recommend fresh beans.

Sift the dry ingredients- flour, baking powder, sugar, lemon juice/zest/cocoa powder/vanilla beans using a sieve that way they mix well.

Mix the well-mixed, sifted dry ingredients with eggs and butter.

Line the cupcake moulds with cupcake liners and then pour the batter into them.

Pop the tray into a pre-heated oven at 175 C for 6-7 minutes, the baking time depends on the size of your cupcake liners or moulds, so to avoid the cupcakes from burning, do keep a watchful eye whilst they are baking. 

For the frosting, beat the butter, powdered sugar, lemon juice with a beater until smooth. 

Frost the cupcakes after they are cooled, else they heat will tend to melt the butter (frosting), we do not want that.

Start frosting using a piping bag or by using a spoon to apply the frosting over the cupcakes.