Lemon muffin cake with luscious lemon buttercream

The BandCamp kids loved the banana muffins with vanilla frosting yesterday, so I thought I would give them a try of lemon muffins for their last day.

Lemon muffin cake with luscious lemon buttercream

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (reserve 2tbsp for buttercream)
2 eggs
1 lemon, zest of, finely grated

Prep Time: 20 mins

1 Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 15 muffin tins with baking cases OR grease and line the base of a 9" cake tin for one big muffin
2 Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; blend well.
3 Melt butter. Turn off heat, stir in lemon juice and eggs.
4 Stir egg mixture into dry ingredients and blend until well moistened.
5 Spoon into muffin tins or cake tin
6 Bake 20-25 minutes until lightly browned, but do not over bake... 15 mins for muffins

When cool....

1 Soften 1 stick of butter and gradually add in about 2 cups of icing / confectioners sugar. Use a KitchenAid.... much easier.
2 Then add in the lemon juice and mix again.
3 The next luxury ingredient is 4 tbsp lemon curd. Mix it in to the buttercream.... heaven!
4 Spoon the icing over the top of the cake / muffins and sprinkle on the lemon zest as the finishing touch.

Banana muffins with vanilla frosting

This week is the gorgeous one's BandCamp. Last year, I made cupcakes and cookies for the kids last year and this year is no exception. This is my latest recipe for banana cupcakes. Oh, they look lovely...

Light the oven to Gas 350F, 190C
Mash together...

2 large bananas
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1 beaten egg
1/3 cup melted butter

then add to this mixture....

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix it all up and half fill 18 cupcake cases.

Bake for about 20 mins until risen and golden

Frosting.....

Cream together 1 stick butter and about 2 cups icing / confectioners sugar until quite firm. Use a mixer for this; it's so much easier.
Add in 1 tsp vanilla extract and about 2tblp milk (if you need to make it softer)

Swirl the icing on top of the cakes and sprinkle on some grated chocolate

Enjoy!

Long eared bunny rabbits

My friend Jenny found a pattern for a lovely bunny. Unfortunately, the pattern was wrong in many places and simply did not make sense. So, I sat down and rewrote the pattern, changing elements for sizes and final design and came up with a "prototype." This prototype in now firmly clasped to the small blond one, so I had to come up with another bunny and decided that a clotted cream yarn bunny with polka dot ears was just the thing. I think he's cute... not particularly photogenic and the photos really don't show how soft and cutesie he is, but I'm kind of pleased with him.

New York State and Seattle 2010

Me and the small blond one have returned to the US of A!
A week with the gorgeous one and family in New York State, sailing and canoeing and kayaking and eating and chilling and oh, it was wonderful.

And now, nearly four weeks in Seattle, taking in city life and enjoying every minute of being here.

And so much knitting to be completed... the small blond one is now in possession of a small long eared rabbit and said long eared rabbit needs a friend... well, a cream coloured rabbit which will be sent back to the UK for my cousin's freshly cooked baby boy!

We're now off to a Block party to meet the neighbours!