Friends recently gave us some fresh limes from their tree, and I wanted to give them a thank you gift, so I decided to make Lime Cupcakes. I have never considered making lime cupcakes before, but I am so happy that I did as they have such a fresh and delicious flavour. The cake has a lime flavour but it is subtle, so I wanted to add a burst of lime, so I added lime curd. To make sure that the cupcakes didn’t leave people with that ‘just sucked on a lemon’ face, I created 3 skinny channels in each cupcake so that burst of citrus isn’t overwhelming. 
- CUPCAKES
- 345g self-raising flour
- 265g white sugar
- ½ tsp bi carb
- 1 & ½ cups almond milk
- 100mls lime juice put into almond milk to curdle
- 150ml vegetable oil
- 2 Flax eggs (30g golden flax meal & ⅓ cup water)
- Finely grated Lime peel from 1 large lime
- Green food colouring
- LIME CURD
- 1 cup lime juice
- 10g margarine
- 225g white sugar
- 30g cornflour
- ½ cup oat milk
- ICING – ERMINE FROSTING
- 400g castor sugar
- 90g plain flour
- 450ml almond milk
- 450g vegan margarine
- 2 tsp Vanilla
- Finely grated Lime peel from 1 large lemon
- LIME CURD INSTRUCTIONS
- Add sugar and corn flour to a small saucepan on put over medium heat on the stove.
- Add juice, almond milk and margarine to saucepan and whisk until it thickens.
- Once it becomes a pudding like consistency, put into a plastic container. Put on the lid and refrigerate overnight. It will thicken further as it cools.
- CUPCAKE INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre heat oven to 175°C (347°F)
- Mix lime juice with almond milk and set aside for a few minutes to curdle
- Add flour, sugar & bi-carb soda to a large bowl.
- Pour vegetable oil and and juice/milk mix into dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- To make the flax egg, mix flax and water into a small bowl and mix well. Do this just before you add it to the cake batter otherwise it becomes too thick.
- Beat until all combined.
- Using an ice-cream scoop, add one scoop to each cupcake wrapper.
- Bake for 20 minutes but check after 18 minutes as ovens can vary.
- Remove from oven once a cake tester comes out clean. Place on a cooling rack until room temperature.
- ICING INSTRUCTIONS
- Add flour and sugar to a medium saucepan and place over medium to high heat.
- Gradually add almond milk and stir continuously until the mix is a pudding like consistency.
- Transfer container and cover with cling wrap – press the wrap onto the pudding mix to make sure that a skin doesn’t form. Cover container with lid and place in fridge until cooled. I will usually do this the night before I need it.
- Once cooled, beat margarine until smooth. Gradually add the pudding mixture. Only add a large spoonful at a time otherwise the icing can split. If your icing does split, you can get it back but you need to beat for a long time.
BAKING TIPS
Flax Meal
My preference is for Golden flax meal. I feel like it works better in the cake batter but that could be my imagination. It definitely looks better in a light coloured cake because the brown flax meal can leave flecks of brown which you can see.
I usually get golden flax meal from a health food shop but when I couldn’t find the one I like recently, I bought Golden Flax seeds from my local IGA supermarket (Australia) and ground them myself in my coffee grinder. I am so happy with how my cakes turned out, that I am going to grind my own from now one. It takes a few seconds in an electric coffee grinder and the meal is nice and fine.
Cupcake Wrappers
I also prefer to use the more upright cupcake wrappers in a thin cardboard rather than the traditional wrappers. The reason is that the traditional wrappers can be very fickle about peeling back from the cooked cake. If you undercook slightly then do it. If you keep them in a sealed plastic container, they do it. It doesn’t always happen but with the wrappers than I now use, it never happens and that make me happy! The other great advantage of these wrappers is that you don’t have to use a special pan. Then just sit on a flat tray and won’t lose their shape.
ICE-CREAM SCOOP
This is the best and fastest way to get the perfect amount of cake batter in each cupcake wrapper. You need the old style scoop with the release handle. Makes baking so much faster.
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