Orange and Poppy Seed Cupcakes

Cupcakes are perfect for every celebration. This particular celebration was my nephews 18th birthday in October.

My nephew Brandon is a an enthusiastic and talented cook and excels in baking. He made his own 18th birthday cake under the guidance of his bakery teacher at school and presented a delicious Ferrero Rocher mud cake complete with lashings of ganache and chocolate curls.....now I'm making myself hungry.

Anyway back to cupcakes, the beauty of cupcakes is that they can be plain or embellished to suit any occasion and theme. Yon only have to google cupcakes to see that you are only limited by your imagination when decorating these delicious morsels. From bite size to giant cupcakes, you decide the scale and intricacy of what is presented.

Enjoy xxx
 

Orange & Poppy Seed Cupcakes

YOU WILL NEED

40g poppy seeds
125 ml warm milk
150g butter at room temperature
2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest
1 tablespoon orange juice
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
185g self raising flour


ICING

see perfect cream cheese icing recipe.
Use the base recipe and add 1 teaspoon of finely grated orange rind at the end of step 3

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 180c or 160c fan forced.
2. Warm the milk in the mircrowave or saucepan.
3. Combine the poppy seeds and warm milk in a bowl and set aside for 15 minutes.
4. Place the butter, orange zest and sugar in a mixer and mix until pale and creamy.
5. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until just combined.
6. Sift in the flour and add the poppy seed mixture and orange juice. Beat in a mixer on low speed until just combined. Increase the speed and continue to beat for 3 minutes until the mixture is thick and pale.
7. Spoon the batter into cupcake wrappers and bake for 15-18 minutes.
8. Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool.
9. Prepare the cream cheese frosting and pipe on to cupcakes or spread with a palette knife. (I used a wilton tip 1M).

(Recipe source unknown)

Tip: Vary this recipe by substituting the orange rind and juice in the cupcake and the orange rind in the frosting for lemon.

Pin It