Easter Bunny and Chicks Yuzu Citrus Cupcakes

Happy Easter! let's make some Easter treats for our family and friends to bring smiles to everyone's faces :)

Yuzu Citrus Cupcakes

Ingredients

For the Yuzu Citrus/Lemon Cupcakes

160g caster sugar

3 citrus, zest (can substitute with lemon or lime)

150g unsalted butter, softened and diced into cubes

2.5 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp vanilla extract

4 eggs, lightly beaten

220g self-raising flour

290ml buttermilk

For the Yuzu Citrus/Lemon Buttercream

Cadbury mini eggs to decorate

150g unsalted butter, softened

135g sifted icing sugar

50g citrus marmalade from Japanese or Korean store (can substitute with good quality lemon curd)

Method

For the Yuzu Citrus/Lemon Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to fan 170°C and grease and line cupcakes cases into 12 holes cupcake tin.

2. Measure the sugar in a small bowl, grate zest into the sugar and let them sit in the bowl for a few mins, this help the sugar to absorb the aromatic essential oils.

3. Cream butter together with the sugar mixture, baking powder and vanilla extract.

4. Slowly pour in the eggs, whisk until light pale and fluffy.

5. Mix in half of flour and half of the buttermilk on low speed, repeat for the remaining half of flour and buttermilk until the mixture is smooth.

6. Fill the cupcake cases to ¾ full with the mixture, bake for 25 mins and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

7. Leave the cupcakes in the tin to cool for 5 minutes before turning onto a cooling rack.

For the Yuzu Citrus/Lemon Buttercream

1. Cream the butter, and icing sugar for 5 minutes until soft and fluffy.

2. Whisk in the citrus honey or lemon curd until well-combined.

3. Fill the buttercream into a piping bag, pipe it onto the cupcakes with a star nozzle and decorate with Cadbury mini eggs.

Have a great long weekend!

Lemon Meringue Pie

I have been seeing a lot of yellow this month, apart from the easter decoration, supermarket shelves are full daffodil and lemon! I havent made enough lemony dessert, I have always wanted to use my cool rectangular tart tin to make Lemon Meringue Pie :)

Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients

For the Tart
260g plain flour
2 tbsp icing sugar
150g unsalted butter, cut in cubes
1 egg

For the Lemon Custard Filling
3 level tbsp cornflour
125g golden caster sugar
finely grated zest 2 large lemon
200ml fresh lemon juice (from 5-6 lemons)
85g unsalted butter, room temperature
3 egg yolks and a 1 whole egg

For the Meringue
4 egg whites, room temperature
200g golden caster sugar
2 level tsp cornflour
finely grated zest 1 large lime for decorate (optional)

Utensils
36cm rectangular tart tin / 9 inches loose base round tart tin

Method

For the Tart
1. Put flour, icing sugar and butter in a large clean bowl. Rub the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Add 1 tbsp cold water gradually to the mixture until the dough comes together.
3. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 30 mins.
4. Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Gently roll out pastry to 3-4 mm thick.
5. Line the pastry into the tart case. Gently press the side and trim away the excess pastry.
6. Prick the base with a fork. Chill the pastry in the tin for 30-60 mins.
7. To blind bake the tart case: Preheat oven to 180°C. Line pastry case with foil paper and fill with baking beans (can substitute with any other dry beans). Bake for 15 mins until pastry sides are set.
8. Remove beans and foil paper and return tin to oven for 8 mins until base is cooked through.
9. Take the tin out from the oven and set aside.

For the Lemon Custard Filling
1. Mix cornflour, sugar and lemon zest in a saucepan, strain and stir in the lemon juice gradually.
2. Cook over a medium heat, stir in 120ml water, keep stiring until thickened and smooth.
3. Remove from heat when the mixture starts to bubble, beat in the butter until melted and well combiined.
4. Beat the 3 egg yolks + 1 whole egg together, stir into the pan and return to a medium heat.
5. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and bubbles.
6. Remove from heat and set aside while you make the meringue.

For the Meringue
1. Put the egg whites in a greasefree large bowl, whisk to soft peaks. While whisking, add sugar and cornflour gradually until it peaks. Set aside.
2. Give the lemon custard a quick whisk on high speed to a hot smooth filling, pour it into the pastry case.
3. Fill the meringue into a piping bag and pipe around the edge of the filling. You can also spoon the meringue and spread it onto the tart.

4. Return to the tin into the oven for 20 mins until the meringue is crisp and slightly coloured.
5. Remove from oven and let the pie cool down in the tin for 30 mins, then remove from tin and let it cool down completely for 30-60 mins before slicing.
6. Grate some lime zest on top, serve and enjoy the same day :)

Jewellery Cupcakes for the IT FOUND ME Tea Event

My stylish friend Karen has started her online fashion jewelry shop IT FOUND ME - fun, affordable fashion jewelry and statement accessories for the quirky chic personalities. IT FOUND ME is also on ASOS Market Place! New jewelry and pictures are updated regularly, I often find something that attracts my eye :-D please check it out :) you will definitely find something you like. They make very good presents and can be posted to you in designer boxes.

IT FOUND ME hosted a tea event to showcase the jewelry and accessories in the Soho Hotel. I was very honored to have the opportunity to make some personalized cupcakes for the event. I made Tiramisu, Red Velvet, Chocolate and Lemon flavoured cupcakes.

The cupcake toppers were made the same as the quirky statement style and the logo of IT FOUND ME.

The toppers were made of foundant/sugar paste with a layer of edible glitter. I like the feather earrings the most, they are 1:1 size, and the rings can fit on your finger :)

The logos were actually more difficult to make because the royal icing had to be hand-piped to have the consistent font, they look so cool together.

I was trying to arranging the cupcake toppers like IT FOUND ME's cover photo.

Jewellery toppers on the Tiramisu, Red Velvet, Chocolate and Lemon Cupcakes:

They also look really cool on the 4-tier cupcake stand in the Tea Event. The event turned out to be a huge success, with great guests, lots of fun and we all bought our favourite jewelry from the 2013 Spring Collection :-D Karen did such a great job and we are all looking forward to the next collection!

Iced Easter Rabbit and Chicken Lime Cookies

Easter decoration is everywhere, I found some cute rabbit and chicken cookie cutters, they are quite big and seem to be best for iced cookies. I always wanted to make iced cookies, I have heard and read about how difficult it is to get the right consistency of royal icing, I gave a try and it is actually not difficult at all, the consistency can be adjusted with more icing sugar or water. These simple rabbit and chicken designs also make it easier to pipe the outline and flood (fill) the shapes with royal icing.

Iced Easter Rabbit and Chicken Lime Cookies

Lime Cookies

Make about 12 large cookies, depends on how large your cookie cutters are.

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
125g sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp lime zest (or lemon/orange zest or vanilla bean paste)
1 egg
250g flour, plus extra for dusting
Cookie cutters of your choice, I used these:

Methods

1. Cream butter, sugar, salt and zest together until pale and fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined.

2. Sift the flour in and mix until just combined.
3. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.
4. After chilling, roll the dough into 5mm thick on a lightly floured surface.
5. Use cookies cutters to cut the dough into your desired shapes, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, chill them for 30min or until firm, this will prevent the cookies from spreading.

6. Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Cool the cookies with the baking tray on a wire rack.

Royal Icing

Ingredients

450g icing sugar
30g egg white/meringue powder
1 tsp cream of tartar
vanilla or lemon extract
150ml warm water
a few drop of food colouring of your choice

Methods

1. Put icing sugar, egg white powder and cream of tartar in a large grease-free mixing bowl, beat with a hand-held electric mixer until well blended.
2. Add in water and extract gradually, beat on high speed until icing is very thick and glossy, about 5 minutes.
3. The soft-peak icing can be thickened with more icing sugar to pipe the outlines, and the runny icing can be loosened with a few drop of water to flood and fill the outlined shapes.
4. Keep icing covered in damped towel at all times when it is not being used.
5. Divide into a few bowls for different colour, add food coloring and mix well with a teaspoon.
6. Use a piping bag to pipe the soft-peak icing around edges of cookies and make designs.
7. Flood (fill) the cookies with the runny icing, allow the icing to dry completely before adding the next colour.

Cake International London Competition (12-14 April)

I went ahead signing up this Cake International London Competition on my birthday without too much thought, worst case would only be losing £12.00 entry fee. Without any PME Diploma nor Le Cordon Bleu Certificate, I entered into the student (part-time) level competition class:

DECORATED CELEBRATION CAKE 

A single tier cake to be coated in sugarpaste or royal icing. Theme and decoration to be of the competitor’s choice but must include one of the following skills – handmade or piped sugar flowers, brush embroidery, bas relief, piped extension work, run-outs, modelling, air brush techniques, painting, free formed writing. Ribbons, stamens thread, wires and floristry tape permitted. No other artificial decoration allowed. Cake to fit within a maximum base size of 38cm (15”) square. Dummies may be used. 

Let's see how it goes, I think it will be fun : ) 

Oh, for birthday, we have a special culture in my firm, the birthday girls/boys usually bring cakes in themselves, rather than other people getting the cakes, I guess it is because we have too many colleagues and we cant keep track of everyone's birthdays :-O

Instead of buying cakes this year, I made some simple ones myself - Marshmallow Mississippi Chocolate Pie, Coffee Walnut Cake and Victoria Sponge Cake. They all went so quickly :-D