Monday, May 28, 2007

Elderflower Cupcakes



Elderflower is everywhere round by us at the moment, and in our ever present rainy weather you get a lovely scent when you walk past it. I decided to try making some elderflower cupcakes using the elderflower cordial I made the other day. I tried two different types of icing, glace icing and butter icing. I prefered the glace icing as the elderflower flavour came through better.


The Cakes

2 eggs

the weight of the two eggs of :

Caster sugar

Butter

Self raising flour

Elderflower cordial to taste.( you can buy this in most supermarkets if you haven't made it)


Glace icing

100g icing sugar

about 2 tablespoons elderflower cordial


Butter icing

100g icing sugar

100g butter

2 tablespoons elderflower cordial


To decorate - washed and debugged elderflowers ( or silver balls or sugar flowers would be good if you can't get hold of elderflowers)



Preheat the oven to 180C


Mix the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and creamy. Add one egg and half the flour, mix well, then add the rest of the flour and the other egg and mix until smooth. Add the elderflower cordial a tablespoon at a time, until you can get a faint taste from the batter, this will be a matter of personal taste. Spoon in to cake cases ( about 24) and cook for 15 mins or until risen and golden.


When cooled make the icing. For the glace icing sieve the icing sugar and add elderflower cordial a tea spoon at a time until you get a smooth paste. Colour as desired. For the butter icing, cream the sieved icing sugar and butter together, then add elderflower cordial to taste and beat until smooth.


Pull the little flowers off the stalks of the elderflower, checking for bugs, and sprinkle over the icing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My neighbour has some elderflowers growing in profusion in the back garden. I think I may be tempted to ask to have some to try out your elderflower inspirations.

KJ said...

Your cakes look lovely. I'm jealous. I love elderflower. But it's not something we have in Australia.