teacakes

Today I've made cupcakes for tomorrow's "farewell Moira" arvo tea. I've used the recipe I always use when making cupcakes for a crowd. It's a re-jigged cake recipe cut from a mag a few years ago. I'm such a fan of this recipe as it's foolproof, it makes a lot (around 22) and they always turn out flat-topped which is best if you're using glace icing rather than buttercream.

Passionfruit Buttermilk Cupcakes

All ingredients should be at room temperature:

185g butter, softened
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
1/2 cup icing sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups SR flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup passionfruit pulp (about 6)
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tspns finely grated lemon rind

Preheat oven to 165 degrees. Cream butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Add eggs singly, beating well after each addition. Add rind, then sifted flours in 3 batches and liquids in 2 - so flour, liquid, flour, liquid, flour. Dollop mixture into paper lined cupcake tins (I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to do this so they're all a similar size) and bake for 25 mins. or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tins for 5 mins to stop cakes shrinking away from papers. Remove and cool completely on a rack before icing.

Note: I couldn't find any cheap passionfruit anywhere, so I blitzed a peeled orange with the stick blender and used the resulting pulp instead. I think the result was as good if not better than with passionfruit, and was much cheaper than buying 6 @ $1.49 each.