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Pumpkin Cupcakes
Makes 12 Cupcakes
Ingredients
For The Cake Batter:
125ml vegetable oil
75g caster sugar
50g light brown sugar
2 eggs
110g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
150g grated pumpkin (1/2 small)
For The Cream Cheese Frosting:
100g unsalted butter, very soft
100g icing sugar
160g cream cheese
100g lemon curd
For The Pumpkin Frosting Powder:
50g grated pumpkin
Method
1. Heat the oven to 180°C.
2. Peel the pumpkin, remove the seeds and then grate the flesh.
3. Sift the self-raising flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Then grate the nutmeg in separately.
4. In another bowl, weigh in the sugars, the vegetable oil and break in the eggs.
5. Mix the dry ingredients together so they are evenly distributed. Then whisk the wet ingredients together.
6. Mix the 150g of grated pumpkin into the oil mixture, the fold in the dry ingredients and stir it until it is free from lumps of flour.
7. Pour the cake batter into a pouring jug, then pour it evenly into the cupcake cases, filling each one about two thirds of the way up.
8. Put the cupcakes into the oven and bake them for 25 minutes. After the time, remove them from the oven and leave them to cool completely as you prepare the icing.
9. Into another bowl, sift in the icing sugar and place in the soft butter.
10. Whisk them together so there are no lumps, then add in the cream cheese and whisk it again until it is all smooth. Then add the lemon curd.
11. Whisk in the lemon curd and then apply the icing to the top of each cupcake. Either use a proper piping bag with a proper icing nozzle and pipe the icing on delicately or, if you don't have one (and I mean really, who has a piping bag and nozzle anyway, unless you're over sixty or a professional cake decorator) use a butter knife and smear it on as best you can.
12. And now for the slightly odd part. Place the remaining 50g of grated pumpkin on a silicon mat or baking parchment on a baking tray.
13. Put the baking tray into the oven at 50°c for 2 - 4 hours or until it is completely dry and brittle.
14. Once the pumpkin is completely dry, place it into a pestle and mortar and grind it until it has formed a powder. Then add half a teaspoon of icing sugar and mix it in.
15. Sprinkle the powder on the top of the cupcakes. (Allowing them to sit for an hour in the fridge before serving lets the icing sugar in the powder melt and concentrates the colour and flavour of the pumpkin.) Grate a little more fresh nutmeg on top of the cupcakes and serve.