Thursday 28 February 2013

Lovely Yellow Thursday...

The sun has been shining all day - and it really feels as if spring is in the air! My mood immediately lifts when the weather gets brighter and the days seem longer. In homage to the onset of spring I've had a day full of yellow today! Yellow is SUCH a cheery fun colour, and always makes me smile. 

Yesterday I bought a gorgeous bunch of daffodils to brighten up my living room, they've burst out of there buds today and are looking glorious! 


I'm also working on a lovely mustard yellow knitting project - I cant show you the whole project or reveal what its for - but I will say its a work-in-progress for a birthday present for a special friend in a few months time. :-) 


To carry on the yellow theme today I decided there was only one option at lunch time.....



....my favourite....poached eggs on toast - full of protein & yumminess. 

I headed out this afternoon for a little walk to blow the cobwebs away, stretch my aching back, and to enjoy some fresh air, and snapped the lovely bright sunshine....ahhhh gorgeous! 



Then came home for an afternoon of yellow baking.....

Inspired by this morning's This Morning on ITV, I baked Phil Vickery's recipe for Lemon Meringue Cupcakes. The whole prospect of making a version of my favourite ever dessert (Lemon Meringue Pie) in cupcake form really appealed to me - and they looked so fun to make. A great alternative when you don't fancy messing around with pastry and homemade lemon curd. Although, its fine to use homemade lemon curd for this recipe, if you have some. My friend Janet over at Kitchen Table Sewing recently made a scrummy Lemon Meringue Pie from the Queen of cakes Mary Berry's recipe - so if you fancy that rather than the cupcakes you'll find her lovely blog post & recipe here

Using piping bags you pipe half the cake batter into cupcake cases, then pipe in a blob of lemon curd, then more cupcake mix on top - resulting in a yummy cupcake with gooey lemon curd centre. And then do the same again with meringue & lemon curd for the topping - wow! 

piping lemon curd into centre of cake batter mix

all piped and ready for baking

just out of the oven...cooling...

piping lemon curd into the centre of the meringue

all piped and ready for a quick blast in the oven

just out of the oven...mmmm....golden meringue

a sliced version...lemon curd in the centre of the cake and the centre of the meringue

All finished and looking very sunny! 

You'll find the recipe here - it really is such a fun and simple bake. 

Just to spread the sunshine, I took four of the freshly baked cakes round to my lovely neighbours' house - a little random act of kindness to brighten their day! An added bonus being that my lovely neighbours daughter can eat them, as she has a severe nut allergy - but these are nut free

:-) 

I hope you've all had a lovely sunny Thursday too! 
Happy Baking

Mrs B 

xxxxx