Cupcakes and being bad to be good!

This is my second mothers day as a mother, and I'm still trying to work out what makes a perfect mothers day for me.  Second to going to a spa by myself for the day, (with help from Jon and obviously) I've landed on breakfast in bed and cup cakes for lunch!  What really surprised me is how much I enjoyed making them.  I love cooking, but there are 2 greater loves for me and they are casually baking and singing so I cranked up my music sang and baked my way into contentment.

I knew I was allowing myself a sweet treat this weekend, and all week I have been trying to decide what that should be, cake, cookies, brownies....it was quite the dilema! When I landed on cupcakes, the problem wasn't over, should I stick with simple but mindblowing vanilla, or get more adventurous, in the end I did both!

I can't take any credit for the cake recipe I used.  When I cook, I add a little or lot of whatever I fancy but when it comes to baking, its much more important to follow recipes and measure carefully.  I love the Hummingbird Bakery basic vanilla cupcake recipe and used that for the base of all the cakes, then got a little more creative.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

12 cup cakes

Lemon curd (I bought mine)

4 egg whites

1/4 cup cold water

1.5 cups caster sugar

Bit of lemon

Bit of lemon juice

Gouge a hole in the top of each cake and fill with lemon curd

Put a large bowl over a pan of simmering water, make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water

Wipe the inside of the bowl with a slice or lemon to remove any grease that may be lurking

Into the bowl put egg whites, sugar, water

All you need to do is whisk with an electric whisk for 10 - 15 minutes on high

Keep tasting it (like you would be able to resist) I found it eye wateringly sweet (du'h) and decided to add a little lemon juice to take the edge off

Once the mixture is extremely stiff, remove from the heat and beat some more until it has pretty much cooled

Pipe onto your cupcakes, go at them with a blow torch if you have one or stick them under the gril to brown a little.  My pictures are pre browned, I plan to steal my Mums blow torch this afternoon and will post pictures of their bronzed beauty.

Sometimes I feel like you have to be bad in order to be good, give yourself a treat so you don't feel deprived, enjoy it 100% and then get on with your next healthy meal! Enjoy!