Lemon Cupcakes with Fondant Flowers

Ciao!

This year for Christmas (or technically last year...) my sister gave me some fondant flower cookie cutter things. I really wanted to use them so I made cupcakes and cut out little flowers to put on top of them.

I also got a cake decorating book for Christmas. The cake recipe, icing recipe and fondant recipe are all from the book. The cake recipe is based on the Lemon Drizzle Sponge recipe from The Cake Decorating Bible by Juliet Sear.  I made 24 cupcakes out of this cake mix.

Ingredients:

For the cakes - 

200g softened butter

100g caster sugar

100g soft light brown sugar

Zest of 3 lemons

4 eggs, beaten together

200g self-raising flour

For the syrup - 

60g caster sugar

Juice of 1.5 lemons

Zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Place cupcake cases in a cupcake tray.

Start by making the syrup. Mix the juice of the lemons and the caster sugar together and heat. Heat until the sugar has melted. Take off the heat and leave to cool. Add in the zest.

To make the sponge, beat the butter and sugars until creamy. Add in the egg a quarter at a time. Add in the flour and the lemon. Mix until a smooth mixture has been formed.

Spoon the cake into the cases and bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.


For the buttercream -

125g softened butter
250g icing sugar
Zest of 1.5 lemons

To make the buttercream, cream the butter and the icing sugar. Add in the lemon zest and mix. Pipe onto the cupcakes.

For the fondant -

250g fondant icing sugar - you cannot use normal icing sugar
A few splashes of boiling water
Food colouring (optional)
2 tbsp of icing sugar
2 tbsp of cornflour

Mix the fondant icing and the water together. Place onto a surface dusted with the icing sugar and cornflour and knead. It should form a rollable dough. Add the food colouring of choice and roll out. Use cutters to cut out flowers. Once the flowers have been cut out, place them on a plate which has also been dusted with the icing sugar and cornflour mixture.