Recipe: Lemon And Lime Cupcakes

Last year I made Lemon And Lime Cupcakes. Looking back on them and how far I've come as a baker, they're not my best work. So today I'm back with my new and improved recipe for Lemon And Lime Cupcakes.

Ingredients
For The Cakes 
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 100g Stork/Margarine
- 2 Eggs
- 2 Tsps Lemon Extract

For The Icing
- 200g Butter
- 320g Icing Sugar
- Zest Of Half A Lime
- Juice Of Half A Lime

Method
1- Pre heat over to 180C. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2- In a bowl place the Stork and the caster sugar. Beat until fluffy and pale in colour.
3- Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat until fully combined. Don't worry if the mixture looks a little runny at this point, it'll soon thicken up when you add more flour.
4- Repeat with the other egg and another tablespoon of flour. Beat until fully combined, taking care to scrape the edges of the bowl.
5- Fold in the rest of the flour and the lemon extract. Now is the only time in this recipe that you have to be gentle. Beating the mixture too quickly will knock out all the air that you've already built up.
6- Spoon into the paper cases and cook for 20-22 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool for five minutes in the tin then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
7- For the icing, place the softened butter into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
8- Add half the icing sugar and beat until fully combined. Don't worry if you don't sieve the icing sugar, I never do and I never end up with lumps in my buttercream.
9- Add the rest of your icing and beat until everything is fully incorporated.
10- Beat in the lime zest and lime juice. If your buttercream is a little stiff, now is the time to add a splash of milk to get it to the perfect piping consistency.
11- Now the food colouring is optional. You don't have to add and keep it the basic buttercream colour but if you want to give them a pop then food colourings the way to go. I originally planned on going for a pale lime green shade but these turned out more like highlighter green. Make sure that all the food colouring is beaten into the mix before you pipe the icing as you don't want a random burst of colour on your cake.
12- Now it's time to ice your cakes. You can use any piping nozzle you like but I always go for my trusty 2D Flower Nozzle. It gives a lot more control to the icing than a thinner nozzle and I love the easy swirl design.
13- Once you've iced your cupcakes, let them set and then enjoy with family, friends or in my case work colleagues.