Lemon curd cupcakes with fluffy coconut icing

When life gives you lemons... well I didn't make lemonade, instead I made a litre+ of lemon curd. I didn't have any jars to store it in so I called on my sister- in law to get some and with the rest I tried to make some cupcakes. I looked on the Internet for a recipe with Lemon Curd as an ingredient but all I could find were recipes of white or yellow cakes with lemon curd spread between layers. I decided to make up my own recipe (generally that doesn't go too well but this time it was not too bad).

I used the recipe I found from Bakerella and swapped some ingredients for the lemon curd. The result: a nice yellow cake with a hint of lemon. For the frosting I decided to make a fluffy coconut icing, except I didn't cook the mix enough and the sugar didn't melt which gives a gritty icing (according to my husband is quite difficult to eat.

Anyway here is the recipe:

For the cupcakes:

- 1/2 cup of butter
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup of lemon curd
- 2 cups of sifted self rising flour
- 1 cup of whole milk


Preheat the oven to 180 degree C.
Prepare the cups for the cupcakes.
Using a mixer, cream the butter until fluffy.
Add the sugar and continue to cream for another 7 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time. Beat well after each egg is added.
Add the lemon curd and delicately mix.
Add the flour and milk (alternating) to the creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
Add the vanilla flavor to the mix.
Divide the batter into the cups ( I made 6 medium sized cupcakes and 24 small ones).
bake for a about 20 minutes. If you use the toothpick checks it needs to come out clean.
Leave the cupcakes to cool in the pan until you are able to handle them and place them on a wire rack to completely cool.

In the meantime make the fluffy coconut icing.
- 3 egg whites
- 1 1/4 cup of white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
- shredded coconut

In the heatproof bowl place the egg whites, the sugar and the cream of tartar.
Beat on high speed with an electric mixer for about a minute until it turns white.
Place on a pan over a pot of boiling water making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the boiling water.
Keep beating the mixture for about 7 minutes or until you get to soft peaks. Here is where the catch is as well, your mixture needs to reach approximately 160 degree C or alternatively taste it and check what the texture is like. I didn't and I ended up with more texture than I asked for because my sugar did not dissolve properly even thought I had reached soft peaks.
Once this is done, take the bowl off the boiling water pan and beat for another 2 minutes.
Pipe the mixture onto the cooled cupcakes and "dust" with shredded coconut.

Note:
- I thought the cupcakes needed a bit more lemon hit so I will try again next time with more lemon curd.
- Because of that I scooped some of the cupcakes tops off and spooned some more lemon curd in, put the tops back on and piped my fluffy icing over.

I will hopefully be able to post some more feedback tomorrow after my team of tasters have sunk their teeth into them.
The first one was my husband and he didn't like the icing because of the gritty texture but he really liked the cupcakes themselves. It was light and lemony.
Hope you enjoy making those and especially eating them.