Primrose Bakery Lemon Cupcakes

Well, it's apparently Chocolate Week this week and I am a bad blogger because I have nothing chocolate to blog about at all. This is a pretty poor admission for a confirmed chocoholic (a day does not pass without the divine brown substance passing my lips!). However, there are plenty of chocolate treats already on the blog, so you can peruse them here if you wish! Why am I talking about chocolate in a post on Lemon Cupcakes? Well, if I'd made these a month ago I could have blogged about them in National Cupcake week (13th - 19th September) - I'm really not very organised at all am I!?!

I was visiting J a couple of weeks ago and whilst shopping together I spotted one of my favourite cheap bookshops so made a beeline for the entrance, and then (naturally) gravitated quickly to the cookery section (with J sighing in the background). I saw lots and lots of books that I wanted to buy, but managed to restrict myself to just two (with J asking whether I really needed any more cookery books - no, I don't ever need any more, I just want them!). One of these was 'Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery'. I was slightly doubtful about buying this book, I do already have quite a few cupcake cookery books and even I wondered if this purchase was going to be justified or not. I'm pleased to report that my first recipe has definitely made me glad that I bought the book (and at a bargain price too!).

I have enjoyed the cupcakes from the Hummingbird bakery book, which are so light they almost dissolve in your mouth as you eat them, but these are different. I can't think of a complimentary way to say this but they are denser, with more weight and heft to them. You feel like you've eaten something rather than just inhaled it, and I rather like this about these cupcakes. So now I feel that I've got two good recipes for cupcakes depending on the desired texture in the resulting cake. Win! I'm looking forward to trying out some of the different flavour combinations in the book too - Honey and Granola, Earl Grey, Caramel, Pumpkin - yum!

I followed the recipe as printed, even warming my milk up to room temperature in the microwave (loving my new microwave! - haven't had one for about seven or eight years). I omitted the specified tbsp of sour cream as I didn't have any, and added a little more milk. These appeared to be done at 25 minutes (as specified in the recipe) by the skewer test, but were very pale so I left them in for a further 5 minutes to brown a little more.

The texture of the cake is lovely and close - dense, but in a really good way! As you can see, I didn't make a buttercream for the top, instead choosing a refreshing glace icing made with lemon juice. Delicious, and colleagues agreed - these were very popular!