Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Hey People,

Tom and I went to his mum's for dinner on Saturday and I decided to make lemon meringue cupcakes, partly because I wanted to find a nice lemon recipe. To make the base cupcakes I actually just used a normal cupcake recipe and added lemon juice instead of vanilla. But they were a disaster! They were so buttery- they had like a cup of butter for a mixture meant to only make 12 cupcakes (I think I got a few more than that but still!) Here they are before going into the oven (note, I filled the cases quite high after my chocolate cupcakes I made the previous week failed to reach the top of the cups).

And here is a picture of them after baking. They look pretty good don't they? So I left the room for like two minutes and when I came back they had shrunk! It was crazy, like they completely came away from their cases. So in the end I just took them off.

Next I put holes in each cake and filled them with yummy lemon curd (so delicious- thanks for the recipe Mindy- they were definitely the highlight of the cupcakes). Aren't my holes pretty? I then made meringue (I just used the Edmond's recipe for lemon meringue pie here- you can't beat Edmond's), I tried piping it but that wasn't going to happen so I just plopped it on the top, put some coloured sprinkles on top (to match the pink and white merignue) and baked them until golden. They actually turned out okay. I think that since I used only meringue for the topping which was quite light and because the lemon curd had such a lovely strong taste it really cut through the buttery-ness of the cakes. I am going to make some more curd for cakes this weekend but think I will try a different lemon cupcake recipie and maybe ice them with lemon cream cheese). If anyone has any awesome lemon cupcake recipes let me know!