Power baking wonder woman Shikhita Singh was so chuffed when her Fair Cake white chocolate and limoncello cupcakes won our recent Londonist Cupcake Throwdown that she decided to share her winning recipe with us. Awesome!
Image courtesy of Shikhita Singh
Keep reading for the scrummy recipe.
White Chocolate and Limoncello Cupcakes
Ingredients (makes about 16 cupcakes):
For Cupcakes
150 gms unsalted butter
3 tbsp corn flour
1 unwaxed lemon (zest only)
175 gms caster sugar
2½ tsp baking powder
4 medium eggs
2 tsp good quality vanilla extract
284ml (1 pack) buttermilk
220 gms self raising flour
For Icing/Frosting
1 portion of Easy Buttercream
Recipe
100gms White Chocolate
Good Glug (60 ml) of Limoncello +
extra sips for the baker
Method:
Here is the winning recipe that won the Londonist Cupcake Throwdown
in every single category. Enjoy!
Preheat oven to 150C Fan or 160C otherwise.
Ensure that the butter is very soft. You can either leave the butter out
of the fridge overnight, or zap it 20 seconds at a time in a microwave.
The butter should be as soft as possible without melting. Put all
measured ingredients, apart from the flour and buttermilk, in a kitchen
mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix until light and fluffy.
Now mix in half the flour and half the buttermilk, on low speed. Mix in
the remaining flour and the buttermilk on low speed. The consistency
of the mixture should be a bit like heavy custard and it should plop
nicely from a spoon. This mixture is enough for about 16 or so
cupcakes, depending on the size of your cupcake liners. Fill cupcake
liners between ½ and ¾ the way up. Fill ½ way up to get an even flat
shape, fill ¾ way up to get a nice dome shape. Use a muffin pan,
otherwise the liners spread into ghastly shapes.
Bake for 20 minutes in the middle of the oven, but check after 15 by
inserting a little cocktail stick. If there is anything stuck to the stick,
then bake for the full 20 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for
around a minute and then take them out carefully and allow to cool
outside the pan.
For the icing, make one portion of the Easy Buttercream (recipe on Fair
Cake website). Melt the white chocolate carefully in a double boiler
and cool to room temperature and mix in with the buttercream. Add
around half the limoncello to the icing. If you are not satisfied with the
limoncello-ness of the buttercream, add more.
Now, and this is the secret, make a thin-ish liquid mixture of the
remaining half of limoncello with 3tbsps of the buttercream. Using a
skewer or knitting needle, make a little hole in each cupcake and pour
down ½ tsp of this mixture. Make some more if you run out. Sneaky,
eh?! Then slather the cupcakes with icing. Win win!
More deliciousness at www.faircake.co.uk!
