Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

I recommend making the lemon curd first, because it has to chill for two hours before you can use it.

Cupcakes:

3 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 tbsp freshly grated lemon rind

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and baking powder. Meanwhile, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs, beating until combined. Add zest and vanilla. Alternate in flour and buttermilk/lemon juice, still beating.

Fill cupcake tins 3/4 high. Bake 13 minutes, turn, bake 13. Let cool.

Lemon Curd:

2 eggs + 8 egg yolks (save whites for icing)

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup lemon juice (the recipe says about 6 lemons; I only needed 3 and was still able to get the juice for the cake)

2 tbsp butter, cut into pieces

Combine eggs, yolks, sugar, and lemon juice is a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. I used my metal mixing bowl and just set it in a small saucepan, since I don't have a double boiler. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thick. It'll bubble into a thick, light colored foam -- you can definitely tell when it's ready.

Remove from heat and whisk in the butter until it melts. Strain into a bowl you can store in the fridge for at least two hours.

I strained the lemon juice right after I squeezed it, to remove the seeds and pulp, and when I stained the curd I found that there was really nothing left in the strainer -- maybe a few fragments of egg white. So I think you can save yourself a step by straining the lemon juice, and then you don't need to worry about straining the curd when it's hot. The picture on the right shows what the curd looked like after strained.

Meringue Icing:

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

2 tbsp corn syrup

6 egg whites

Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup in a small saucepan with a candy thermometer. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling until syrup reaches 230 F (110 C, or "thread" stage).

Meanwhile, whisk egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add in the syrup slowly while continuing to whisk.

Whisk hard until this mixture is cool and stiff -- at least seven minutes.

To Put Together:

Take the cooled cupcakes and slice a shallow indentation in the tops using a serrated knife. Put a generous spoonful of the lemon curd into each of these indentations, using the spoon to spread it slightly.

Using a piping bag fitted with a wide tip, pipe a little spiral of icing on top of the curd.

Use a kitchen torch to brown the icing spirals gently.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.