Orange Lemon Cupcakes

It came a bit of a surprise when my colleague asked if I had wanted to cater for two separate morning tea breaks for my office. We had a number of regional executives visiting Singapore last week and they were expected to be in town over a few days. Meetings had been scheduled for the whole week with separate groups and my colleague was in charge of organizing the menu for morning and afternoon tea breaks, as well as lunch.

I was initially unsure as I'd never done catering as a business venture before. It's one thing to bake for fun and another to actually bake for "customers". I gave it some thought that evening and decided that I would give this a try. I told my hubby about my first "business" venture and he said, good for you! I could not decide on what cupcake flavour I should make, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry .... and finally decided to bake a batch of orange lemon cupcakes with orange frosting.

As my hubby and I were out most of the morning and early part of Sunday, I could only bake the cupcakes later in the day. Luckily I had made orange cupcakes before and the recipe was the same for these cupcakes! However for an additional flavour I decided to add in some sliced candied lemon peel into the cake batter and also some lemon extract into the buttercream. I also used the candied peel as decoration on top of the buttercream.

Orange Lemon Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup cake flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs, separated and whites beaten until stiff
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup orange juice
1 stick of butter, softened
1 Tsp orange zest and lemon zest
1 Tsp chopped candied lemon peel

Method:

1) Combine butter, sugar, egg yolks, orange zest and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Cream ingredients together thoroughly.

2) Mix flour, salt and baking powder together in a separate mixing bowl. Add dry ingredients to creamed ingredients 1/3 at a time alternating with adding portions of the orange juice to the creamed mixture. Fold in beaten egg whites.

3) Spoon batter into cupcake liners until 1/2 full.

4) Bake in a 350 degrees preheated oven for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.

Orange Buttercream

Ingredients:

50g/2oz Softened Butter
100g/4oz Icing Sugar
1 Tsp orange juice
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp orange extract

Method:

1) Place the softened butter in a mixing bowl and sift the icing sugar over the top.

2) Add orange juice and zest and cream all the ingredients together until well blended.