Gingerbread Cupcakes

Gingerbread sounds like it should involve cookies, but it turns out it's just fine as a cake flavour too.

My friend Rachael picked these out of my copy of Betty Crocker's Big Book of Cupcakes for me to make. So it's rather a pity that she wasn't around to try them... Next time hey, Rach? (We can say this was a practice run.)

Cream cheese icing ingredients, complete with cinnamon, ground ginger and mixed spice...

Most interesting icing ingredient: lemon rind. It works suprisingly well!

You can find the recipe for these cupcakes here, on Betty Crocker's website. But pay no attention to the photo - cream cheese icing does NOT sit that neat and firm in Queensland summer heat! It looked sloppy when I piped it with the open tip so I ended up just spreading it on.

Review from Jess:

Hint of lemon in the icing - brilliant. The base wasn't very gingery, but was still deliciously soft and moist.

Review from Bec:

Jess has said everything I had to say.

Lemon Diva Cupcakes

My mother-in-law very kindly gave me a copy of Julie Goodwin's "Our Family Table." Julie was the winner of the 1st Australian Masterchef series, and the book is put together really nicely.

I tried out her Lemon Diva Cupcake Recipe (<-- link here), but only had 2 lemons on hand so that's all I used (rather than the suggested 3).

I was making these for church supper so I opted for mini-cupcakes and ended up with about 26.

I added some extra lemon juice to the icing to try and make up for less lemon in the batter, but not sure it made much difference except making the icing less firm.

These weren't my favourite cupcakes, but they still disappeared quickly. If I bake them again I'll make sure I have enough lemons first.