Cook Local

It's not often I find a dessert recipe that really calls to me. After all, we have so many good places to eat in Seattle. Two different cupcake places, several excellent bakeries, and a whole host of restaurants that serve almost any type of dessert you can think of. But when I saw these cupcakes on Slashfood, I knew I had to try them. I made the curd and cupcakes on Saturday and assembled everything on Sunday.

Now, I could have just followed the recipe to the letter, but J's diabetic. So I wanted to see if I could adapt these to be low sugar. If that wasn't enough of a challenge, these were a test for a party we're going to next weekend. The additional catch? The hostess is allergic to wheat. So I also needed to make these without flour.

So... do you think I did it? Well, here's a picture of the result.

Without further adieu... onto the recipe. I'll separate the recipe in to the three parts (lemon curd, cupcakes, and meringue). All organic ingredients will be marked with a *. All local ingredients will be marked with a &.  

Lemon Curd

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice *
• 3 large eggs *&
• 1 large egg yolk *&
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup Splenda
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest *

NOTES: I should have used organic butter, but I was weak. Tillamook butter was on a fantastic sale at our local market, so I bought a pound. The eggs were local, from Skagit River Ranch.

Directions:

Put a couple cups of water into a saucepan over medium heat until the water is simmering. In a glass bowl that will sit nicely over the saucepan, whisk the lemon juice, eggs, egg yolk and sugar until smooth. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the bowl. Place the bowl on the saucepan and whisk gently. Cook the curd until it thickens and you can see a ribbon of curd hang off the whisk.

In my case, this took about 25 minutes, but it could take as few as 10. Remove the bowl and strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Add lemon zest, stirring gently to fold. Cover and chil thoroughly.

Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rice flour *
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest *
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup Splenda
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter *
• 1 large egg *&
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup milk *&

Directions:

After preheating the oven to 375, combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium sized bowl. In a large bowl, rub the lemon zest, sugar, and Splenda together with your fingers to combine. When you're done, the sugar mixture should have a yellowish tint.

Add the softened butter and cream together until light and fluffy. Or... that's what is supposed to happen. When you're using Splenda, light and fluffy is sort of wishful thinking. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for another minute. Now, alternate the flour mixture and the milk a little bit at a time. Begin and end with the flour mixture.

When you're done, the batter will be a bit like cream of wheat. At this point, I don't mind telling you, I was worried. Cupcake batter should be smooth and thin. Or at least that's what it's always looked like to me when I used one of those box mixes. I persevered through my fear however, and lined 18 muffin cups with foil. I filled them about half full and slid them into the oven.

20 minutes later I had cupcakes.

Fast forward 24 hours and it's Sunday!

Meringue

Ingredients:

• 3 large egg whites *&
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 cup sugar

Directions:

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until just before the soft peak stage. Add the sugar a little bit at a time until the meringue has reached stiff peak stage.

Assembly

I took a paring knife and started carving up the cupcakes. I carved a cone shape out of each one. Oh! The horror! It's a cupcake massacre.

The casualties of war were tasty though...

I took a dollop of lemon curd (about a tablespoon and a half) and placed it in the hollowed out cupcake. I topped each cupcake with meringue.

After preheating the oven to 400, I put the topped cupcakes on a cookie sheet and baked them until the meringue was just browned. This took about 6-7 minutes.

Ta-da! Cupcakes!

So.......... how did they taste?

Overall, I give these a 7. When I asked J for his rating, he gave them 7.5. The flavor was very good. I really couldn't tell that they were gluten/wheat free or had very little sugar. There wasn't an aftertaste as some Splenda baked goods can have. The meringue was light and fluffy and the lemon curd had a nice tang to it. But... the cupcakes were a little dry and the lemon curd could have been just a tad bit firmer.

I'm going to make these again on Friday for the party we're attending next weekend. I'll hope that the lemon curd gets a bit thicker and I'll bake the cupcakes for a minute or two less.

Overall, these were a success.