Delectables with Dan: Mini Lemon Cakes with Candied Lemon Slices

Greetings all my fellow snackies.
Yes, as it's cupcake month, I've got something new and exciting for you. Perhaps I should have done this during the summer, but meh, I had time today and I wanted to experiment. This one is a looooong one with a lot of steps, twists and turns so you might wanna grab something to eat, literal, metaphorical or both before we begin.

Everyone refreshed and ready? Yes? Good. Let's begin.

We're going to start off making the topping to the cupcake, the candied lemon!
For this you will need:
3 medium sized, fresh lemons

350ml cold water 

400g granulated sugar 

You're going to start by pouring your sugar into the water. Whisk together before turning on low-medium heat. Continue to whisk until sugar is dissolved. Keeping it on low-medium heat allow it to heat to a simmering boil while you slice your lemons. You want them to be about 1/8 of an inch thick. Usually, I'd never say this, but in this case, thicker is not better. You also don't want them to be too thin either. It's almost like a blind date dilemma. Anyway, once you've sliced all of them make sure they're not fertile, like the way you're praying your girlfriend is when you cum inside her and you're unsure if she's' taken her birth control or not. That means remove the seeds if you weren't sure. 

Once you have sliced them into lovely, neat little circles, ah, this is making me think of Brian Moser and his work with the prostitutes. (It's a Dexter reference in case you missed it.) Neat, bloodless little packages...In this case, I've got neat, semi-juiceless little packages. Excellent.  By now your little sugar water magic should be at a low boil or nice and steamy. Drop your slices into the top of the magic mix. DO NOT LAYER THEM. LIKE WOMEN WITH LARGE BREASTS DON'T LAYER THEY'RE TOPS. DO NOT DO IT. 

You are going to allow these to simmer for 15-20 minutes on the same heat. The lemons will soften a bit and will appear extremely pale in colour. (This includes the entire lemon, not just the juicy centres.) Carefully you want to remove them from the magic mix, allowing the extra sugar syrup to drip off before laying them on a sheet of baking parchment or waxed paper. Allow them to settle for a few moments before putting the tray of candied lemons into the icebox. (You can leave them there for up to several days, but we're gonna use these suckers up today.) Sprinkle with a pinch of granulated sugar before topping atop cupcake for a sexy, semi-sparkly look to them. They will be sticky, much like most pairs of knickers after a Magic Mike showing. You know, I never saw that. Is it good? My sister really loves it. I heard that Tatum guy was really a stripper. Is that true? Shit, I'm getting off topic here. 

Making the cupcakes you will need:
190g plain flour. (don't use self-rising) 

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

240 ml French Style lemon yoghurt
200g caster sugar
3 large eggs

2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla essence

*If you're not using lemon yoghurt, use 240 ml plain yoghurt with 80ml of fresh lemon juice*

In one large bowl combine the baking powder, flour and salt. You don't have to sift it if you don't want to. You can be lazy like me and just whack it all in there. It really doesn't make any difference in this case.
In a separate bowl combine the eggs, vanilla essence, sugar, lemon yoghurt, lemon zest. Using a whisk combine the ingredients together. It will make a yellowish goo like solution. It kind of looks like whisked eggs if I'm honest. As off putting as that may seem, it's delicious. I was going to make an ass eating joke here, but eating ass isn't all that delicious. Fun yes, erotic, yeah, delicious? No. Not unless someone's stuck hard boiled sweets up there I guess. Nevermind. You can use the electric hand mix for that if you're too prissy to do manual labour. Some twat stain on the food channel I was watching online actually called whisking ingredients together "manual labour". What a pampered life he must lead. Posh cunt. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and give a decent stir before turning on your electric mixer or if you wanna go old school, hand whisking, your ingredients together. Mix on medium-high speed for about a minute, scraping the sides if you need to with a rubber scraper. Make sure everything is nicely blended. There should be no lumps or bubbles in the mixture. The mixture will be thick and velvet like in texture. 

Once you've completed your mixing task, it's time to pour the batter into the baking cups. I already bought Halloween ones, so I used them in this. I know it would have worked better with a spring themed one or even just a regular coloured one, but goddamn it, I love Halloween. Halloween starts 1 September and ends 1 November at my house. Okay? Actually, Halloween never stops. It's not just a holiday, it's a way of life. 

Put them into bake at 190C/375 for roughly 20 minutes. Cakes will be a tad spongy when they come out of the oven. Remember to check your cupcakes before removing them. Speaking of cupcakes, I've got a cupcake story that I can't wait to share with you lot. That will be up sometime this week. Oh shit, that reminds me I still haven't done the write up for Messiah and Pals. I'll get round to that one sometime this week, I think. Don't hold me to it. I don't do well under pressure; I snap like Rebel Wilson's support hose. 

While those little lemon lovelies are baking up nice and golden for us, we can make the icing. You don't have to add yellow food colouring if you don't want to, but I did to give it a nice colour pop. I added a little more lemon than what's usually called for to give it the sugary Pez taste. I got one of those lemon flavoured sweeties as a kid and I've never forgotten the sweet, tartness of it. Still to this day, it makes my insides flip flop every time I eat one. The only other thing that's been able to turn my insides to salty goo is Chubbs, but that's a story for a different day.
To make the lemon icing you will need: 
1/2 tsp of vanilla essence
4 tsp of lemon juice (real, not that fake shit)
1 tsp of lemon zest (optional) 
113g of salted butter softened
375g icing sugar/confectioner's sugar

Making this icing is a bit less complicated than some of the other things that I've done on here. Combine all the ingredients with 1/3 of the conf. sugar. Blend well with electric hand mixer. Add second half of sugar. Mix again. Add the rest of the sugar along with 3-4 squeezes of yellow food colouring. (Gel or liquid, it doesn't matter) And mix completely. By this time, if you've added the yellow food colouring, it should be a bright and happy yellow colour. It honestly depressed me to look at something so bright in colour. I needed to sit down for a minute. The mixture should be light and fluffy and tart with a hint of sweet. Put your mix in the icebox if it's hot in your kitchen, you don't want it getting too melty. It will be a mix of a glaze/icing. 

*If your mixture is not as thicc as your lover or you want to thicken it a bit simply add a tablespoon of cornflour (corn starch) and mix well again.
**In the future I will turn it into a full on thick icing and pipe it onto the cupcakes. I just wanted to give this a go. You know, try new things. Experiment. Take that one any way you want. 

*Moans sensually* Look at those puffy, golden delectable lemon-laced babies. 

And my lovely little assistant Pork Chop will hold the icing tool while I pop all of the little cupcakes out of their hidie-holes. I mean, remove the cupcakes from the baking tray. Using a small or medium star-tip you're going to carefully ice your cupcakes. Don't be surprised it the icing form doesn't hold up and spreads out a bit. That will happen, especially if it's hot. And it was hot as fuck in my kitchen. I was also cooking dinner at the time I was baking and doing all this as well as running around to Nirvana. Honestly, Nirvana is some great baking music.

   

*Australian Accent* Wotcha! Look at them beauties!
*Normal voice* Right, now that we've gone and iced all 24 of these it's time to let the icing set for about 10 minutes in the icebox before we top them with our candied lemons. Remember them? It seems like we made them ages ago, doesn't it? Who's to say it wasn't? What is time anyway? It's a prison, that's what it is. I'm going to type up a rant on time while I wait for the icing to set. 

That took a little more time than I expected. The ranting and raving revved me up and then Chubbs distracted me. Anyway, let's pull the cupcakes and the candied lemons out of the icebox and unite them in holy matrimony. You know, I've only been to Catholic or Christian weddings. Do other faiths say holy matrimony? What does a civil service bloke say? Is it still mean the same if those words aren't said? Questions are my worst enemy. I'm supposed to be topping cupcakes, yet I'm wondering about the inner sanctum of marriage. Tisk, tisk, Danny. Focus bitch!

Carefully take up one of your candied lemons and plonk it right in the centre of the cupcake. Yeah, I said plonk it. Nothing fancy up in this kitchen, lads...and lassies? Went a bit Scottish there for a second. Complete this with all your candied lemons, if you haven't consumed them, like an unstoppable rebel force. Plate and keep in ice-box until time to serve. And there we have it! Lemon yoghurt cupcakes with candied lemons on top! 

**Yeah, yeah I know that I missed a seed there. One cunting seed! I can't handle it. It bothers me to look at that. I can't believe that I fucking missed it. The unbalance of it all is tilting my applecart.

**Sorry this is later than I promised. I know I said I'd have it up over the weekend, but I went to see a film, then serious depression hit & it felt like it didn't matter if I got this done or not. I mean, it still kind of feels like that, but I need to barrel on. See you DelectableHeads next time. 

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