Spring has arrived in England; everywhere you look daffodils and crocuses are providing splashes of colour, brightening up gardens and roadsides. To celebrate the joys of spring, I thought that a nice brightly flavoured citrus dessert would be just the thing. And then… Maki announced that the theme of this month’s Is My Blog Burning was to be cupcakes. Well. What could be better than a lemon cupcake? Even a chocolate cupcake would have to work hard to beat that.

In the United Kingdom, we don’t have cupcakes. We have… fairy cakes. Tiny cakes of sponge (if you’re lucky, it’ll be moist sponge) served at children’s birthday parties. It is debatable whether a fairy would actually eat one. Classically topped with plain glace icing and a lurid glace cherry. If I’d known as a child, what luscious cupcakes were available on the other side of the Atlantic, I’d have revolted at my birthday parties until someone made the good stuff. Now that I’ve tasted cupcake heaven, will I ever be able to serve up plain old fairy cakes to my future children? I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it….

So, onto today’s IMBB: Triple-Lemon Cupcakes. What you can’t see in the picture above is the filling–a tart, voluptuous lemon curd. The cupcake is flavoured with a hefty amount of lemon zest (yet is not bitter) and is very moist; the icing (or frosting if you’re across the pond) has a generous amount of lemon juice which gives it a lovely tang. Despite all the citrus, this certainly isn’t health-food!

Whilst I was preparing all the components, I worried that it would be overkill. Could there be such a thing as too much lemon? I’m happy to report that this is not the case. Cake, curd and icing work extremely well together to create a delicious dessert.

I am now utterly converted to cupcakes, and I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with! Thank-you, Maki!

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I had a disastrous cooking session on Thursday when I decided to make my cookies for this month’s IMBB (hosted by Jennifer, she’s having a busy month!). I had decided to make some German Cinnamon Star Cookies from a recipe that I’d clipped out of a magazine a couple of years ago. The recipe looked quite reasonable (and beautiful – the cookies were supposed to have a snowy white baked meringue topping) and I couldn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work, so I hunted high and low for some star cutters (this is a tale in it’s own right, and a lesson as to why you should call shops before you set out on a cold day) and went for it.

Alas, my cookies looked decidedly amaturish. I think a toddler could have done a better job – I bet the points wouldn’t have fallen off their stars…. The meringue topping was supposed to develop a crust which would allow you to cut the cookies cleanly; however, after letting the dough sit on the counter for the maximum of 3 hours my dough wasn’t exactly crusty. I let it sit for as long as I dared before giving in and just cutting it. The cookies looked thoroughly miserable, sitting on the baking sheet with trailing lines of meringue everywhere…. I had to stick the points back on the big stars I’d cut, and the shooting stars looked more like palm trees. At least the holly leaves looked vaguely recognisable.

The cookies did taste good once baked – there was a very strong cinnamon flavour in the base, toned down slightly with ground almonds and candied citrus peel with a lemon-y meringue on top. However, they just looked plain awful. Especially the ones that scorched in the second I looked away from the oven. And even worse than their looks, was the mess they left behind in the kitchen.

So, yesterday I decided to make something else. Something much less fiddly that definitely didn’t involve cutters. I wound up making “Phoebe’s Fabulous Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies” from the Friends Cookbook. If you’ve forgotten the episode (or have just never seen it), here’s what Phoebe has to say about her cookies:

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This month’s edition of “Is My Blog Burning” is hosted by Donna of There’s A Chef In My Kitchen. This months theme is wines and spirits which is perfect timing as I’ve just decanted my home-made strawberry liqueur!

I really wanted to showcase the wonderful flavour of the liqueur (intense strawberry and burnt caramel flavour), so the first thing that sprang to mind was scenting and flavouring a crème brûlée with some to create a very adult version of strawberries and cream. Unfortunately the rest of my brain kicked in at this point and I ended up almost drowning in ideas ranging from boozy trifles to layers of strawberry and white chocolate mousse…. Eventually I came full circle last night and settled upon the crème brûlée.

The liqueur flavour was very subtle, just gently scented and flavoured which worked perfectly with the explosions of flavour from the sliced berries. The berries managed to soak up quite a lot of additional flavour from the liqueur (I felt obliged to taste them before macerating them, and afterwards too!) so they were particularly good. Unfortunately the berries all floated to the top once the custard was poured in which spoilt the look a little; next time I’d be tempted to halve the sugar and weigh down the berries with a spoonful of strawberry conserve. All in all, a successful experiment!

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I’ve had a lot of fun making my cake for this month’s “Is My Blog Burning?” day, hosted by the lovely Renee. I’ve owned a beginner’s piping set for a few months now, but I’ve only used it to pipe macaron’s thus far. So, I was looking for a cake where I could pipe pretty things and make a nice fancy looking cake. After some musing about flavours, I decided to make a liqueur cake, with buttercream icing that I could do pretty things with. After further thought, I decided that a cake flavoured with Bailey’s would be rather nice, especially as I had a huge bottle of Bailey’s to hand.

My original intent was to devise my own recipe, but all such thoughts went out of my head when I stumbled over the recipe for Bailey’s Irish Cream Cake from “Karen’s In The Country” in Colorado. The flavour combination of cake, creamy Bailey’s filling, rich coffee buttercream and chocolate fudge seemed utterly dreamy. And also (perhaps) teetering on the edge of being just too intense. I must admit, I do still feel a bit guilty about making such an extravagent cake, especially as there are only two of us. On the other hand, is eating cake for breakfast really such a hardship?

Despite its good looks, the cake was actually quite simple to make. It just involves many steps, but all of which are nice and simple. Plus, I spent almost all day on Friday putting it together, so I was able to take my time and have fun.

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This is my belated contribution to Alberto’s proposal for a blog cooking day – sorry Alberto! I dreamt up this soup a few years ago out of sheer necessity (i.e. the cupboards were bare) and liked it so much that I’ve made it a few times since.

Its quite a thick soup, although easily thinned down with chicken stock to suit individual tastes), and has a lovely velvety texture created by the pureed beans and leeks which is broken up nicely by the reserved beans. As an added bonus, its quite healthy too! The soup can be made with either chicken or vegetable stock – chicken stock does give a much richer flavour and seems to create a nicer texture too.

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