Broken butterfly wings

Sadly, yesterday was Natalie's last baking session here in New Zealand. She was leaving for Malaysia and we spent the day baking two batches of cupcakes. The first of which were Lemon Curd Butterfly Cupcakes.

Lemon Curd Butterfly Cupcakes

(Recipe adapted from Her Magazine - July 2009 - Issue 105)

Ingredients:

• 175g butter, softened
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup lemon curd
• 2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup milk

Method:

1. Place the oven rack in the centre of the oven. Preheat the oven to 190C. Line 12 standard muffin cups with paper cases.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the lemon curd.
3. Fold in the flour alternatively with the milk.
4. Divide the mixture evenly among the paper cases.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until well risen and golden.
6. Transfer to a cake rack to cool.
7. Cut a small disc from the centre of each cupcake and cut the disc in half. Fill the cavity with sweetened whipped cream (we used marshmallow creme) and place two halved discs on top to resemble butterfly wings. Decorate with tiny dollops of lemon curd and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Unfortunately, the cupcakes turned out to be too crumbly for us to cut out proper butterfly wings. We had also ran out of lemon curd so we used marshmallow creme and icing sugar to decorate.

Study break

What do you do when you feel like baking but should be studying for exams?

Cake mix!!!

In the midst of my study break, I whipped up an Edmond's Lemon Meringue Pie. All that was needed was egg and water to add to the packaged mix. It took quite awhile to make as there were many steps involved, but it was definitely a lot faster than making the pie from scratch. As such, I could satisfy my baking desires AND study at the same time!

Result?

The pie was disgusting! It may have looked delicious, but it had an incredibly artificial taste. All three layers were foul: the strong smell of uncooked egg from the meringue was off-putting, the lemon curd filling was bitter and the pie pastry was dry.

In short:


The Edmond's brand may be very well-known in New Zealand but their cake mixes are in a word, yuck. Nothing beats making your own cakes from scratch, but cake mixes are the easy way out and I'll continue to use them when I'm lazy. However, the next time I'm cramming for an exam but have the urge to bake, I shall whip out a box of good ol' Betty Crockers instead!