Orange and Poppy Seed Cupcakes With Passionfruit Butter Cream

Photo: Beyond Beeton

Ingredients

125 grams self-raising flour, sifted

120 grams caster sugar

125 grams unsalted butter, chopped, room temperature

2 extra-large eggs

1 large orange (or lemon): 3 tsp finely chopped zest and 2TB juice

3 tablespoons poppy seeds

3 tablespoons milk

good quality marmalade, for glazing

2 tablespoons passionfruit pulp, strained to separate seeds (for icing)

125 grams unsalted butter, chopped, room temperature (for icing)

220 grams well sieved icing sugar (for icing)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180C (not fan forced) for mini cupcakes, or 200C (not fan forced) for standard size cupcakes.

Take eggs, butter and milk out of the fridge to come to room temperature. While that’s happening, measure out the other ingredients and get everything ready.

Stir 2 TB milk into the poppyseeds in a small bowl. The poppyseeds should start making ‘zingy’ noises.

Combine flour, sugar, butter, eggs and 2tsp of the orange rind in the large bowl of a food processor, don’t over-mix.

Add the freshly squeezed orange juice through the top of the processor while pulsing the mix.

If more liquid is required to make a smooth batter, add half to a TB of milk.

Fold the poppyseeds into the batter with a metal spoon. Add remaining chopped orange zest to taste.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with cupcake papers.

Bake mini cupcakes for 8-10 minutes and regular cakes for 15 minutes. The tops will spring back when gently prodded.

When done, immediately take the cupcakes out of the tins and onto wire racks.

While cakes are still warm, use a pastry brush or bread knife to carefully spread gently warmed marmalade on the tops of the cupcakes.

For the icing, beat butter with electric beaters until pale and fluffy.

Beat in half of the icing sugar and half of the juice from the passionfruit pulp until combined.

Beat in the second half of the icing sugar and passionfruit juice.

Add a little extra milk (1/2 to a TB) if required to make a very light and fluffy icing.

Pipe icing onto cooled cupcakes.

If desired, decorate with reserved passionfruit seeds or curls of orange zest.

Tools

Comments

Permalink Anonymous
May 20, 2009

3 tsp finely chopped zest and 2 juice...??

How much juice...?

Permalink Anonymous
May 20, 2009

I apologise, thanks for drawing my attention to the error. You need 2TB juice.

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About

There’s something so appealing about tiny, citrusy cupcakes, bursting with the peppery tingle of poppy seeds. Oranges and poppy-seeds is one of those combinations that just works. These cupcakes just work too - they can be whipped up in no time and I guarantee they’ll be light, yet moist.

I like my citrus cupcakes to have a gently rounded top. If you prefer a flat top, underfill the cases slightly and drop the oven temperature a little.