Cupcakes are still popular, especially at children's parties. Today I want to tell and show how simple and original it is to decorate cupcakes so that no one can pass by without trying. I will cook the most delicious cupcakes - chocolate, and the cream is very tasty and pleasant to work with.

So, for the preparation of three-color cupcakes, we will prepare flour, cocoa, sugar, milk, instant coffee, baking powder and butter. Just grate one chocolate candy into the dough on a grater, it will add flavor. All products are at room temperature.

Pour coffee into milk and stir.

Sift flour with baking powder and cocoa.

Beat soft butter, add sugar and beat again until the butter is slightly lighter. Add eggs and mix. Pour the flour mixture in parts, alternating with the milk-coffee mixture.

We get a soft dough.

Fill the cupcake molds 2/3 full. We will bake in a preheated oven at 160-170 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Cool the finished cupcakes in the form.

For the cream, prepare eggs, sugar, a little water and citric acid. How to prepare a protein cream in detail is shown.

Leave part of the cream white, color some of the cream pink and blue using gel food coloring.

Put the cream in a confectionery envelope. By applying each color to one side inside the bag, decorate the cupcakes. You can add ready-made decor, or you can make decor yourself.

The remaining cream is deposited on a sheet and baked for 90 minutes at 100 degrees in the oven. Ready meringue is well behind the paper.

Meringue can be served as an independent delicacy.

Everything is ready for the children's party.

And you can decorate cupcakes with meringue. Bon appetit and good mood.

It is convenient to do this in advance, before we put the dough in the oven. Kurd needs to insist. How to cook it, I wrote in detail in the corresponding article, which is called so -.

In the meantime, our filling is cooling, let's make ...

... cupcake dough!

Whip 200 g of natural (as far as possible) butter at room temperature with 180 g of sugar and 1 sachet (10 g) of vanilla sugar. To pomp. I beat with a 450W mixer for about 3 minutes.

Add the zest of 1 lemon. It is convenient to remove the zest with a fine grater, the main thing is not to touch the white part, and it is better to take a thick-skinned lemon (but this is not important) and wash it very well.

Add 4 eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly each time.

Here's what happens.

In a separate bowl, sift 280 g of flour and 3 tsp. baking powder. Stir with a whisk so that our cupcakes rise evenly when baking.

Pour half the flour into the sugar-butter mixture. Mix well with a mixer on low speed.

Add 60 g of sour cream 20%. Mix well again.

Pour in 30 g of freshly squeezed lemon juice. If the lemon is large, then one is enough for you.

Pour the remaining dry mixture and mix again with a mixer until smooth.

Here is the dough. Thick, but falls off the beaters.

Well, in general, the standard cupcake dough.

Bake Lemon Cupcake Bases!

We take cupcake capsules and insert them into metal molds. If you have pods that allow you to bake cupcakes without supporting metal pans, use those. This is usually indicated on the packaging or display case.

Fill molds 2/3 full with batter. We try to impose an equal amount and do it carefully so that our cupcake bases are beautiful when baked. Easy to fill molds with an ice cream scoop.

We send the cupcakes to the oven preheated to 160 degrees for 30 minutes. We check with a dry torch: inserted into the center of the cake, it should come out dry, without traces of dough. I bake on a medium level in the top-bottom mode, without convection. I measure the temperature with a special thermometer for ovens and try not to raise it above 160 degrees: this way there are more chances that the cupcakes will not burst, they will turn out even. They still crack a little, but it’s not at all scary, I’ll say more - for me, it’s even appetizing, somehow ... for real, or something :) And we will still decorate them with hats. But you still have to adapt to your oven, because I have repeatedly made sure that they all bake in completely different ways, even on identical modes.

Syrup!

While the bases for our cupcakes are baking, we will make the syrup for impregnation. It tastes better with it :) Honestly, I didn’t measure it. But about. I squeezed out 50 g of lemon juice, added 30 g of water and 100 g of sugar. I put the whole thing on fire, brought the sugar to a boil and dissolved, cooled it down. You can adjust the sweetness to your liking. Just keep in mind that the more sugar and less water, the thicker the syrup turns out and the worse it absorbs.

Here are our cupcakes!

Each one weighs approximately 70g.

Ready for Italian meringue!

While our cupcakes are cooling down, let's make some cream for the hats. It will be a protein-custard, the more modern name of which is. I gave the technology and proportions in a separate one: the cream is wonderful, absolutely worth it to try it. It is inexpensive, airy, light and versatile. In addition, it is ideal for cupcakes with lemon curd, from the preparation of which the proteins just remain!

And now…

...filling and decorating our cupcakes!

With a nozzle (or whatever is convenient for you), cut out the cores.

You can already see what an airy, tender crumb has turned out! It is a pity that it is impossible to convey the aroma through the screen, it is absolutely amazing!

Pour the syrup into the resulting recesses. I do not pour on the crust on top, it almost does not allow the syrup to be absorbed.

Place the cooled lemon curd in a piping bag and fill the cupcakes.

But we will burn the meringue a little. This technique is quite often used by confectioners: the manipulation is impossibly simple, but it significantly ennobles the appearance of the dessert, makes it more interesting. We need a gas burner. In a professional confectionery environment, they are called caramelizers. Under the same name they are sold in confectionery stores. But in fact, the essence is exactly the same as any of those burners that are sold in hardware, hardware or travel stores. They just cost a lot less. Moreover, if you do not have a burner, you can use a lighter with a horizontal flame, there are such, I know. The usual one won’t work, I tried it, it’s inconvenient :) And you can also put ready-made cupcakes for a couple of minutes in the oven, heated to 200 degrees. I also tried this option, it turns out not as beautiful as with a burner, but if you really want it, but there is no other way out, then try it, the main thing is not to overdo it! With cakes that you decide to decorate with meringue, such a trick will not work, you know, because of the cream with which this cake is actually covered.

Oh, and also, I somehow saw that the finished meringue is poured with hot sugar syrup, caramelized, that is, and the same effect is obtained. But I wouldn't do that with cupcakes.

And with the burner, everything is simple, open it, press the button and work. Just be very careful! My burner is very powerful and sensitive and difficult to control. (Here, maybe “special, confectionery” is more convenient, and therefore more expensive, I don’t know this, or maybe ordinary ones are more convenient, only from another company). Need to get used to it. The flame is strong. Make sure that there are no flammable objects nearby, take children and animals out of the kitchen while working. Adjust the flame and set the hats on fire.

Our wonderful, tender lemon cupcakes are ready!

Gift boxes

And I’ll tell you, since I had such an opportunity, how to make gift boxes with flowers and sweets that are now fashionable. I'm not a big expert, but I tried it, and I really liked this gift/surprise/compliment option. True, I made a mistake, and I will tell you about it so that you can avoid it.

For a bouquet, we need, in fact, fresh flowers. Google the list of poisonous ones. There are some that should not be used in combination with products. It is better to wash the flowers and dry them with cold air using a hair dryer.

Next, we need a special floral sponge "Oasis". It's a thing, I'll tell you! It is amazing: light, instantly absorbs water and perfectly cut with a clerical knife, it can be given any shape!

Cut out a circle from the sponge for the cupcake capsule. Place in a saucer filled with cold water. The sponge absorbs water instantly. Insert flowers of your choice into it.

Now you wrap it with cling film: the sponge is wet, and we need to protect the box from water.

We put the finished bouquet in a cupcake capsule. It is convenient to use tulip-type capsules: they are tall and help prevent the flowers from touching the cream. If your bouquets are lush, and the capsules are not so high, then it is better to use a larger box so that there is room between the cakes and the flower arrangement. You can make a cardboard partition.

My flowers do not touch the cream, but are quite close. But these were my first bouquets of this kind. Next time I will make them less fluffy and use tulip capsules and larger boxes.

In general, I really liked it. It looks beautiful and gentle, and it’s easy, pretty fast and very interesting to do.

Mix flour and baking powder. In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the sugar. Add vanilla and Altero Gold vegetable oil, beat for another minute. Continuing to beat at low speed, add half the flour, half the sour cream. Then - the remaining flour and the remaining sour cream.

Put the finished dough into molds and bake in an oven preheated to 160 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

While the cupcakes are baking, prepare the lemon curd: Separate the whites from the yolks. Place the egg yolks and the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan. Put the saucepan over medium heat and, stirring constantly, boil the mixture until thick (large bubbles will appear that will burst immediately). Remove cream from heat and strain through a medium sieve.

Cut holes in baked cupcakes with a knife, place 1 tsp in the holes. cream and cover the wells with a cut-out lid.

Prepare the meringue: place the whites in a heat-resistant dry bowl and pour in the sugar. Put the bowl in a water bath and beat the whites with a mixer over medium heat for 8-10 minutes. After that, remove the whites from the heat and beat for another 2 minutes. to a slight sheen and persistent peaks.

Using a nozzle and a piping bag, pipe the meringue onto the cupcakes. To brown the meringue, put the cupcakes under the grill for 1-2 minutes. or bake with a gas burner, but the cream turns out to be very beautiful, persistent and tender even without this stage. Decorate cupcakes with fresh edible violet flowers.

I'm back!
Yes, I am a little ashamed that the last post was published back in April, but I had many reasons for this. Summer, heat, trips, impressions, extraordinary changes in life, not at all up to sweets ... I confess, I got a little lazy. Although there is an excuse for this. I never thought that this could happen to me, but all this time I really, really didn’t want sweets! I decided to take the opportunity and, to the delight of my figure, I stayed like that for six months. But autumn came, I returned to Kyiv, it was raining outside the window, and everything returned to normal. I want to please myself with something warm, fragrant, beautiful and very homely. And we will start our autumn season with cute and touching caramel cupcakes with an airy Italian meringue cap.

These wonderful cupcakes are very easy to prepare, in fact it is a cupcake, you can use different baking dishes, according to your taste, if you want to make one rectangular or round cupcake, just increase the baking time.
They are prepared on the basis of caramel sauce, which I have already told you about in detail.

We will also need:
flour - 200 g
baking powder - 3 parts
salt - 0.5 tsp
sugar - 100 g
butter - 100 g (get it in advance from the refrigerator)

2 eggs
vanilla extract - (vanilla sugar, vanillin, etc.)
milk - 100 g

First, prepare the caramel sauce and set aside to cool.

Mix all dry ingredients. Sift flour, add baking powder, salt, sugar. And mix everything thoroughly with a whisk for a minute.

Now add soft butter and cooled caramel to the flour (not all, look at the consistency, the dough should not turn out to be too liquid).

Mix very thoroughly with a spatula. This is how it will look like at this stage.

Add eggs and vanilla extract. We mix.

And at the end, half a glass (100g) of milk. The dough should be moderately thick.

We put our dough in baking dishes (I laid the forms with paper ones). Do not fill completely, the dough will rise during baking.

And send it to the oven (175 *) for 20-25 minutes, Check the readiness with a splinter. If you use one cake pan, the baking time will increase. You will need 35-45 minutes.

Cakes are ready!

Now let's move on to our meringue. What it is? Meringue, and even Italian ... It sounds! But everything is much simpler, but no less tasty. It's a protein cream. Everyone remembers puff tubes with cream in powdered sugar? I love them. Here they use just such a delicious cream. Everything ingenious is simple, many confectionery products can be decorated with this meringue, it is always tasty and very beautiful. And you can also fill your favorite custard cakes with cream. Coming soon recipe)

For meringue we need:

sugar - 200 g

water - 75 gr

protein - 100 g

Syrup is made from water and sugar. I have a cooking thermometer in my arsenal, so according to the rules, I heat the syrup to 117-120 *. But if you don’t have such a device in the kitchen, which is absolutely natural, then your meringue does not end there)

Just dissolve the sugar completely in water and boil for a couple of minutes.

Cupcakes - lemon, strawberry, cream and chocolate - are now popular with sweet teeth all over the world. They first appeared in America. It happened in the last century. Mini cakes decorated with air cream, icing or fruit are easy to prepare and perfectly replace the usual desserts. Today, the focus of our attention is lemon with the photo below, which describes two types of such delicacies.

Basic Recipe

The classic version of cupcakes usually includes a small set of ingredients. Butter, flour, eggs and sugar are almost always found in any kitchen. Recipe ingredients can be changed. And then new types of dessert will appear at the exit. Just one addition of spices will help create a completely new mini-cake sound. However, most often cupcakes are distinguished by decoration, acquiring due to it not only external features, but also other flavors.

So, for a slightly modernized basic recipe, you will need:

• Flour mixed with baking powder - 2.5 cups.
• Butter (butter) - 200 g.
• Sugar (better to use fine or even powdered) - 1 cup.
• Eggs - 3 pieces.
• Milk - half a glass.
• Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon or vanillin on the tip of a knife.

Cooking

At the first stage, soft butter is whipped with powder and vanilla. Then eggs are added to the mixture - you need to enter them one at a time. The next step is adding flour and milk. They can be introduced in parts, alternating with each other, so that the consistency does not become too liquid or dry during the kneading process.

When the mass becomes homogeneous, it is laid out in molds. You can use silicone, paper, ceramic or metal - it does not matter. The main thing is to pre-lubricate the last two types of dishes from the above options with oil. Forms are filled with two-thirds of the dough.

Cupcakes are baked for 15-20 minutes at 180º. Finished products are left for a short time in the forms. Then they are taken out, cooled and decorated.

Lemon cupcakes

For experienced housewives, the question of how to turn ordinary mini-cakes into lemon ones is unlikely to cause difficulty. To do this, just add zest to the classic set of ingredients. Lemon cupcakes are good on their own. They can be served without any extra decorations. An interesting option is to decorate cupcakes with thin, gracefully curved ribbons of zest. You can go the other way: with lemon aroma and taste, for example, meringue and custard are perfectly combined. In a word, the possible options for delicacies are limited only by the imagination of the culinary specialist. And by the way, you can make orange cupcakes in the same way.

Lemon cupcakes with meringue

A great option for decorating almost any type of cake is a delicate meringue. The protein mass is applied to the surface of the cupcakes after baking. And to prepare the meringue, you will need sugar (225 g) and whites of three eggs.

The ingredients are mixed in a suitable bowl. On the stove put a pot of water for a water bath. A container with a protein mass should not touch the surface of a slightly boiling liquid. The sugar base of the meringue is sent to a water bath and constantly stirred until it heats up to 45º. Then the mass is whipped with a mixer until strong peaks form. Using a pastry bag, meringue is used to decorate ready-made cupcakes. And they are sent to an oven preheated to 200º for about 4-7 minutes. The finished meringue will be browned and crispy on the outside.

lemon curd

An interesting version of mini-cakes can be prepared if you use a variety of custard - lemon curd. It replaces the traditionally used milk with lemon juice. Kurd is not an easy dish to prepare, but attention and a little patience will help you quickly cope with it.

To make the cream, you will also need a water bath. The water should boil quietly and not reach the bottom of the main container by about 2 cm. In a suitable bowl, combine sugar (3 tablespoons) and lemon zest (about 1 teaspoon) and grind. Then 2 medium eggs and the juice of one lemon are sent there. The container with the contents is placed in a water bath. The mass must be constantly stirred, gradually it will begin to thicken. This will take approximately 7 minutes. Kurd, which has reached the consistency of sour cream, is removed from heat and left to cool for 10 minutes. Then butter at room temperature, about 20 g, is added to it, and everything is mixed. Kurd is ready.

Cupcakes with filling

In order to prepare cupcakes with lemon curd, you need to fill ready-made mini-cakes with cream. To do this, a funnel-shaped or round recess is made in each product with a knife. The main thing is not to damage the bottom. The holes are filled with curd, and the top is cut off from the "extra" pulp. Then it is placed on the cream in the form of a lid. These cupcakes go great with meringue. The protein mass is applied over the lid. And mini-cakes are sent to the oven for 5 minutes so that they are browned.

Cupcakes, the recipe with the photo of which is given above, can be safely prepared for the holiday instead of the usual cakes. Based on the above description, it is not difficult to make variants of cupcakes with orange or traditional custard. Lemon cupcakes (with zest) can also be considered a variant of the basic recipe. With the help of different decorations, it is easy to make new independent desserts from them.