Lemon Meringue Dreams

When I was a child one of my favourite desserts was Lemon Meringue Pie - I was always more excited than a 14 year old girl at a One Direction concert when my mum announced that it was what we were having that Sunday so I've been meaning to make one for a while. However, me and pastry still have a tumultuous relationship, so a couple of weekends ago I decided instead to play safe and make Lemon Meringue cupcakes.

Obviously I've made many a cupcake over the past 18 months but I've never ever made meringue before, so there was still a bit of jeopardy involved.

I made the cake mix as usual, except with the addition of some lemon rind and then added a blob of lemon curd into each case and then topped with a tiny bit more cake batter. I was worried that the lemon curd would sink to the bottom, as happened when I did the same process with jam, but all the recipes I read said to use this technique so I had faith and went for it!

Then came the time to make the elusive meringue; I've seen these go wrong many a time on TGBBO (if you don't know that abbreviation then shame on you*) but went at it with conviction hoping to power through. After a fair bit of whisking, when i thought it to be stiff enough I performed the tried and tested 'holding it upside down' test; I didn't have anyone around to use as a volunteer and I didn't have the balls to hold it over my own head so I just held it upside over the worktop for a few seconds. It passed the test so I loaded it into a piping bag and piped it onto the top of the cakes the same way I would butter icing  I think it could have perhaps done with a bot more beating but I know its hard to reverse meringue if you've overdone it so I played safe.

The last step was to brown the meringue, this steps would have been a lot easier if I had a blowtorch rather than having to use my very temperamental grill but I got there in the end with only a few 'almost setting the house alight with a meringue fire' moments.

On the whole they turned out pretty well, as I had thought the lemon curd had sunk to the bottom meaning they weren't as lemony as I would have liked but having the meringue topping rather than icing makes a nice change, and the browning of the meringue gives them a nice look.

One day soon me and pastry will have to have a sit down and work out our problems but until then these cupcakes will have to do and my want for making a Lemon Meringue pie will remain just a dream.


* The Great British Bake-Off - I wont tell you again!

Blowing away the cobwebs...

This blog has been gathering a substantial layer of dust over the last few months - mainly due to my laziness, actually entirely due to my laziness - however it doesn't mean that my kitchen has been gathering dust too. I have been baking even if its not as regularly as I would like. I've continued to try new things and I thought I would do a quick overview as to what's been coming out of the oven in the past few months.

English Muffins

When I tried to make bagels a few months back they ended up tasting more like English muffins, I figured that this was clearly where my natural strengths lie so I'd be stupid not to give them ago.

I really enjoyed this bake, they didn't quite have the rough texture inside that English muffins should, but they tasted great - toasted and slathered in butter. ( What doesn't taste good slathered in butter?!)

Banoffee Cupcakes

I'd been wanting to make banoffee cupcakes for a while, mainly just to see how they would taste and how adding mushed up banana would affect the cake.

Overall, these were a sort-of success; they didn't rise as much as I would have liked, I think I should have used more raising agent to offset the weight of the bananas, (this bake is when I also decided that my baking powder may have been passed its best) the toffee flavoured icing, however, was, divine.

I was feeling a bit adventurous, so I also made spun sugar decorations for the top; another new technique. I burnt the sugar on the first attempt (really not a good smell) but got it right for the second go - makes a nice little decoration.

(Yes, that is a new cake stand - Christmas present from the boyfriend! Gold star for noticing)

Lemon Curd Dimples

I can't remember what these biscuits were called in the original recipe but I've come up with this one and I'm going to run with it!. These biscuits came about because I had some lemon curd to use and I didn't fancy doing anything too taxing.

They are pretty much just a normal biscuit dough, shaped into balls and then pressed down with a thumb to form a dimple into which you put lemon curd. Simples.

Easy to make and they don't taste too bad either.

Bloomer Loaf

If you've ever read any of my other posts you will be well aware of my love/hate relationship with bread - I love making it, it hates working perfectly for me. The main problem I've always had is that my dough has been too dry meaning it's hard to shape and producing a dry end product. However I watched Paul Hollywood work his strangely sexy magic on a bloomer and he revealed the tip of needing the loaf in oil rather than flour, this allows the dough to be pretty wet and not get dried out by the flour or stick to your hands.

It definitely made for my best bread bake yet.

It also made for a pretty great bacon sandwich!