How To Make Lemon & Honey Drizzle Springtime Cupcakes

What you will need :

Cake mixture-

6oz sugar

3 medium free range eggs

8oz self raising flour

Pinch of salt

Quarter of a tsp of ground cinnamon

Quarter of a tsp of ground nutmeg

1 tbsp of honey

Zest of 1 lemon

Drizzle topping-

2 tbsp honey

Juice of 1 fresh lemon

Quarter of a tsp of cinnamon

Icing-

10oz icing/confectioners sugar
4oz butter
Two and a half tsp of green food colouring

Decorative bumblebees and ladybirds (optional, but you know you want to make them really!!)

Approx 50g of yellow, ready to roll, icing
Approx 50g black, ready to roll, icing
Approx 30g of red, ready to roll, icing
Approx 10g almonds flakes (for the wings)

(note: you can also use marzipan to make the insects and then colour it using food colouring if you prefer)

Other items needed:

24 cupcake cases

It’s Bake Fest Friday at Cherry Menlove

Lemon and Honey Drizzle Springtime Cup-Cakes

For some people it’s half-term week next week here in the UK and that means that in the near future, if you have children, they will be at home. You may like to bake with your kids you may not but even if you like to bake on your own and then offer up the results to eager hands and open mouths these Springtime Garden inspired cupcakes are great fun. They are also easier to make than they appear and of course the insects can be replaced by Easter Eggs, Christmas trees or Pumpkins as and when the event requires.

How to make them :

Makes 24 cakes, you can fins a weight conversion chart here

Preheat oven to 190c

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the softened butter and sugar until soft and fluffy, then beat in the honey and eggs.
Add the zest of 1 lemon.

Sift in the flour, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix together until soft and creamy. You can use a mixer for this but a good wooden spoon and a bit of arm power will do the job just as well.
Place the cupcake cases onto a large baking tray and divide the mixture between them.
Bake in oven for 20 mins or until golden brown.

When baked remove from the oven and allow to cool on cake rack pricking each cupcake with a fork whereby creating the holes for the topping.

For the drizzle topping

Add the honey, lemon juice and cinnamon to a small saucepan and heat slowly for approx 3 minutes until blended and warm.
Take off the heat and drizzle mixture (I used a teaspoon) onto your cakes. The holes you have already made in the cakes will allow the topping to soak into the sponge. Yum!

For the icing, add the icing sugar, butter and food colouring to your mixer and blend for a few minutes until creamy. If you don’t have a mixer then I’m afraid that you’ll need to wear your arm out agin by whipping it up by hand. Don’t worry about this as Summer is around the corner and we all covet Michelle Obama’s biceps secretly!!

Apply to the top of your cupcakes immediately.

For the bumblebee body I rolled a piece of the yellow icing into a ball (approx the size of a large grape)

Then I rolled between my fingers three thin black strips for his stripes and carefully laid them across his back. I added two tiny balls of black icing for his eyes & for his wings I used an almond flake cut in half.

For the ladybird, using the red icing I rolled a small grape sized ball for his body and then rolled another small black ball (about half the size of a small grape) for his head.

I then pressed the head to the body and added four small black spots to his back and two small yellow balls to his head for his eyes.

And that’s it! Easy peasy! You, and the kids of course, could add any number of cute things to the top of your cupcakes, so jump in and have fun.

You’ll note from these pictures that the cupcakes, when finished, were taken out in to the garden and placed rather randomly in amongst some flowers.

This was because the twins were coming over and we are concentrating on colours with them right now. One of Truly’s first words was ‘Green’ and she did indeed point to the green icing and say that word.

We also got to compare a real ladybird sitting on a leaf with one of the ones that was decorating a cupcake. We’re not quite sure if the girls actually knew that they were the same thing or whether it just gave us so much pleasure to see their chubby fingers pointing in the bushes.

It doesn’t matter either way.

The cakes were scoffed, the wet wipes had to come out for babies and adults alike and another recipe was deemed a success, And all of this took place outside on a sunny day.

Nuff said!

It’s another Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK.
On Monday I’m starting on two building projects (!!!!!!!) with my dear Dad. He’s offered to help me on some bits and pieces about the place that I really want to have a go at but need a guiding hand with. The premise of this is that if I can do them then you can do them too. I’ll take copious notes and lots of pictures and I’m going to create a new column here at Cherry Menlove.com called ‘Projects with my Dad’

It’ll be a clear case of finishing the projects and being happy with them or one of us hitting the other with a hammer.

I have no idea what the outcome will be but it’ll certainly make for a good column.

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