Kids Cooking Thursday: Lemon Lime Cupcakes

Lemon Lime Cupcakes
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp lemon essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
90 ml lemon lime fizzy drink (that's 1/4 cup and 2 tbsps, and we used lemon lime mineral water)

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan and line with patty cases.
Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 15 minutes. Mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing each until well blended. Stir in the lemon essence. Stir in the flour, alternating with the lemonade, just until the batter is smooth. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly. (We made 12, but should have made 18.)
Bake until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack.

It may have been because we followed the above recipe (which is missing half an egg, because I scaled it down), or because I used mineral water instead of 'soda', or because our patty cases were full instead of 2/3s full before baking. Whatever the reason, our cupcakes ended up with a lovely crunchy top crust. The insides look and taste/texture like normal cake, lovely and light and fluffy and not overpowering at all.

But the top looks more like those Danish butter cookies with sugar baked on them... in fact you can see where the sugar has swollen in cooking, and it's all crunchy and toffee like and awesome. I don't rightly care that it shouldn't have happened, it's the best bit of the cakes, and that's why I've given you exactly the recipe I used instead of just linking to allrecipes. We were going to bring these to my parents house, but I think I may just eat them all myself. Maybe I'll give a few to Miss Three. She did help lots with the measuring after all.

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