Lemon & poppyseed cupcakes
By Sarah Cook
Cooking time
Prep: 40 mins Cook: 22 mins Plus coolingSkill level
Moderately easyServings
Makes 12These zesty cupcakes look so gorgeous you won't want to eat them, but once you start you won't be able to stop
Nutrition and extra info
Additional info
- Can be frozen un-iced
Nutrition per serving
- kcalories
- 529
- protein
- 4g
- carbs
- 66g
- fat
- 30g
- saturates
- 18g
- fibre
- 1g
- sugar
- 51g
- salt
- 0.75g
Ingredients
- 225g self-raising flour
- 175g golden caster sugar
- zest 2 lemons
- 1 tbsp poppy seeds, toasted
- 3 eggs
- 100g natural yogurt
- 175g butter, melted and cooled a little
For the icing
- 225g butter, softened
- 400g icing sugar, sifted
- juice 1 lemon
- few drops yellow food colouring
- icing flowers or yellow sprinkles, to decorate
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Method
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake or muffin cases. Mix the flour, sugar, lemon zest and poppy seeds together in a large mixing bowl. Beat the eggs into the yogurt, then tip this into the dry ingredients with the melted butter. Mix together with a wooden spoon or whisk until lump-free, then divide between the cases. Bake for 20-22 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean – the cakes will be quite pale on top still. Cool for 5 mins in the tin, then carefully lift onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
- To ice, beat the softened butter until really soft in a large bowl, then gradually beat in the icing sugar and lemon juice. Stir in enough food colouring for a pale lemon colour, then spoon the icing into a piping bag with a large star nozzle.
- Ice one cake at a time, holding the piping bag almost upright with the nozzle about 1cm from the surface of the cake. Pipe one spiral of icing around the edge, then pause to break the flow before moving the nozzle towards the centre slightly and piping a second, smaller spiral that continues until there are no gaps in the centre. Slightly ‘dot’ the nozzle into the icing as you stop squeezing to finish neatly. Repeat to cover all the cakes, then top with sugar decorations or scatter with sprinkles.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, May 2010
Comments, questions and tips
Comments
Delicious cupcakes! I've made them as the recipe said, with icing, and I've also made lemon and white chocolate cupcakes, simply by substituting the poppy seeds for a pack of white chocolate chips, which went down very well (even without icing). This is a cupcake recipe I really like, because they always come out light and fluffy and having the natural yoghurt in the recipe seems to make a real difference.
Really nice cupcakes and a change from chocolate. I'm not one to wonder away from recipes after reading the reviews I made half the icing - I used less butter as I am not keen on the buttery taste and more icing sugar and an extra 1/2 lemon juice. I also added 1/2 lemon juice to the cupcake mix. There are light, yummy summery.
Lovely! I've made these several times now and they go down a treat with everyone. Have found if I add a tablespoon of lemon juice to the mixture it makes them nice and zingy. The first time I did them everyone said the frosting was sickly so now I do them without (yummy) or with a small amount of lemon icing.
Has anyone frozen these, and if so what were they like when defrosted?
Wonderful cupcakes! I'm a huge lemon junkie, so i put lemon juice in the dough, too. And i make a cream cheese-mascarpone-lemon juice-icing sugar frosting, because i'm no fan of butter.
Once i made a variant withour poppy seed, but i filled the lemon cupcakes with fruit marmalade. Impressive result ^^